In two volumes, editors Lester F. Goodchild, Richard W. Jonsen, Patty Limerick, and David A. Longanecker, working with eminent historians, policy analysts, and university leaders, provide a comprehensive overview of the role of education in the American West and the relationships between individual states and their institutions of higher learning. The volumes examine the states from North Dakota and the mountain West to Alaska and California, treating each both individually and as a part of the region; they provide concise, detailed information about each one's history, development, and current policies. One volume spans two hundred years of history, while its companion focuses on clarifying seven key public policy challenges facing higher education in the West today. Together, they make essential reading for higher education policymakers, scholars, and anyone who wants to know what the relationship between states and universities in the West has been and what its future might be.