The essays in this book originated in a group of papers presented on prairie issues at the Association of Canadian Studies in the United States Biennial Conference in Minneapolis in November 1997. These papers were then reworked as published articles for a special theme issue of the Association's quarterly, the American Review of Canadian Studies . This was the first time that agriculture and its impact on the relations between Canada and the United States was profiled in this journal to a readership interested in a broad range of scholarship on Canadian subjects as diverse as literature and politics.