When this novel was first published, it took both American and Britain by storm. It is the story of a dispossessed community, driven from its bit of land in Oklahoma by the implacable march of industrial progress. The big corporations which own the land the 'squatters' occupy decide that the time has come to mechanize agriculture — and so the bulldozers demolish overnight the small-holdings and cabins that represent so many years of hope and labour. Like their fathers before them, these displaced citizens of America set out on the migrant trail to the West, but not, alas, to find a land of plenty in the 'Golden West'. This novel is not only an indictment of industrial civilization but also a chronicle of the fortitude and devotion of the Common Man.