In this new study Donald Pizer analyzes the genesis and the nature of this twentieth-century American masterpiece. He first provides an introduction to Dos Passos' critical view of American life and his experimental fictional techniques by selecting three works from the great body of Dos Passos' writing before U.S.A. The remainder of the book is devoted to U.S.A. - from Dos Passos' planning and composition of the trilogy and his concept of it as a whole to the function of its four modes and the nature of the modal interrelatedness that constitutes the completed work of fiction. This study as a whole demonstrates the complexity and richness of U.S.A. as a modernistic epic American novel. --from inside cover.