This book is a study of the impact of industrialization and urbanization on the environment of New England in general and the Connecticut River Valley in particular - and of the varied public responses to the change engendered by the impact. Part One begins with a look at the early ways of life in the valley: the struggle is to extract a living and the transformation away from settled agriculture. Part Two looks at the responses to these changes and into the roots of emerging social, economic, and political conflicts in the region, and Part Three argues that out of these conflicts emerged the idea of the state as mediating influence.