"How railroads affected the landscape and transformed American culture from 1880 to 1930 is the focus of John R. Stilgoe's profusely illustrated work. In 1983 our reviewer, Dolores Greenberg, called the book an 'impressive' study and said, 'Here in wonderful detail are the trains and the built environment adjacent to the rightofway they traveled."

--New York Times Book Review

"This handsome book from one of America's most talented (and readable) social historians demonstrates how, as he puts it, 'in the halfcentury following 1880, the railroad industry reshaped the Americanbuilt environment and reoriented American thinking."

--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Magnificently documented and illustrated...[A] beautifully produced volume."

--Merle Rubin, The Christian Science Monitor

"A tour de force and that rarest of scholarly rarities, a treatment of an important topic that is simultaneously the first ever and as magisterially definitive as anyone could ever decently hope for."

--Wilbur Zelinsky, Annals

"Only superlatives can do justice to ... Stilgoe's METROPOLITAN CORRIDOR. It is a physically handsome book whose layout and design subtly compliments and supports Stilgoe's themes.... Stilgoe's engaging and lyrical writing skillfully recreates a visual and psychic imagery that transports us, the reader, back to a time when railroads had a powerful grip on American life and imagination.... A wealth of detail, imagery and imaginative insight made this exploration of a past time and mindset come alive.... It will be welcomed enthusiastically by all devotees of American studies."

--Emil Peacock, Material Culture

Yale University Press Web Site, September, 2000

An engaging and delightfully illustrated account of the impact of railroads on the American built environment and on American culture from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the 1930's.