For many observers of the history of the United States of America the country became a synonym for change and motion. Buffaloes roaming across the prairies, cattle being driven, the moving frontier, steamships, locomotives, automobiles, spaceships, the flows of the mighty American rivers, the fast-paced life. Discussing American books, films, art, and culture, we discuss the roads and paths our civilization has been moving along in bygone years, decades and even centuries. Eleven essays by American and European American Studies scholars, examining the shifts America has gone through, give readers a look at where it might go next, casting a new light on the American idea that 'if we're not moving forward, we're moving behind.'