The American West transformed: the impact of the Second World War.

The American West Transformed: The Impact of the Second World War.

By Gerald D. Nash. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. x 304 pp. $35.00.)

A dozen years after publication of The American West in the Twentieth Century: A Short History of a Cultural Oasis (1973), Gerald D. Nash has written an important follow-up work. His earlier volume traced western social and economic development over a seventy-year period; during that time, Nash claimed, the West gradually achieved a high degree of economic independence, and in certain fields, a position of national cultural leadership. In this book, Nash reinforces some of his earlier ideas, but he argues that the most critical changes were condensed within the war years, 1941-45.

Nash's focus is the impact of World War II upon society and culture in eleven western states (excluding Oklahoma, Texas, and the Hawaii and Alaska territories). A forthcoming …