A supplemental textbook for middle and high school students, Hoosiers and the American Story provides intimate views of individuals and places in Indiana set within themes from American history. During the frontier days when Americans battled with and exiled native peoples from the East, Indiana was on the leading edge of America’s westward expansion. As waves of immigrants swept across the Appalachians and eastern waterways, Indiana became established as both a crossroads and as a vital part of Middle America. Indiana’s stories illuminate the history of American agriculture, wars, industrialization, ethnic conflicts, technological improvements, political battles, transportation networks, economic shifts, social welfare initiatives, and more. In so doing, they elucidate large national issues so that students can relate personally to the ideas and events that comprise American history. At the same time, the stories shed light on what it means to be a Hoosier, today and in the past.

Transportation research has traditionally been dominated by engineering and logistics research approaches. This book integrates social, economic, and behavioral sciences into the transportation field. As its title indicates, emphasis is on socioeconomic changes, which increasingly govern the development of the transportation sector. The papers presented here originated at a conference on Social Change and Sustainable Transport held at the University of California at Berkeley in March 1999, under the auspices of the European Science Foundation and the National Science Foundation. The contributors, who represent a range of disciplines, including geography and regional science, economics, political science, sociology, and psychology, come from twelve different countries. Their subjects cover the consequences of environmentally sustainable transportation vs. the "business-as-usual" status quo, the new phenomenon of "edge cities," automobile dependence as a social problem, the influence of leisure or discretionary travel and of company cars, the problems of freight transport, the future of railroads in Europe, the imposition of electronic road tolls, potential transport benefits of e-commerce, and the electric car.

In 1836, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas agreed on one thing: Illinois needed railroads. Over the next fifty years, the state became the nation's railroad hub, with Chicago at its center. Speculators, greed, growth, and regulation followed as the railroad industry consumed unprecedented amounts of capital and labor. A nationwide market resulted, and the Windy City became the site of opportunities and challenges that remain to this day. In this first-of-its-kind history, full of entertaining anecdotes and colorful characters, Simon Cordery describes the explosive growth of Illinois railroads and its impact on America. Cordery shows how railroading in Illinois influenced railroad financing, the creation of a national economy, and government regulation of business. Cordery's masterful chronicle of rail development in Illinois from 1837 to 2010 reveals how the state's expanding railroads became the foundation of the nation's rail network.