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 1930s. “One of the most important [books] of the season, a wonderful piece of social history.”—Ivan R. Dee, Chicago Tribune “Stilgoe ransacks magazines, ads, novels, poems, to create what is really 10 books crammed into one, dense with vivid fact and alluring conjecture. The chapter on trolleys alone is worth the price of the book. So is the one entitled ‘Cinema.’ A classic-to-be.”—Robert Campbell, Boston Sunday Globe “An impressive new study…. Here in wonderful detail are the trains and the built environment adjacent to the right-of-way they traveled…. A stunning spatial analysis of the transformations wrought by the railroads.”—Delores Greenberg, The New York Times Book Review “A honey of a book: scholarly, joyous, absorbing in its detail, often arresting in its insights… and packed with vintage photos and drawings.”—Kirkus Reviews “An original, engaging, instructive, and wonderfully evocative book.”—Leo Marx, The New York Review of Books “Whether we are enthusiasts, scholars, buffs, commuters, or Amtrak riders, Stilgoe offers us a new way to look at railroads and railroading.”—Keith L. Bryant, Jr., Railroad History