As the title of the trilogy implies, Dos Passos's aim in these large books is to paint in broad strokes a picture of the entire United States as the nation faced the challenges of a new century.

The Big Money picks up the story of characters returning from the great adventure of World War I (the subject matter of Nineteen Nineteen as well as the earlier Three Soldiers) and trying to get in on the American dream. Many of these characters accept — as Dos Passos does not — the propaganda that the war ended all wars and made the world safe for democracy. Characters from the earlier novels like Richard Savage, J. Ward Morehouse, and Charley Anderson come home to grab their share of the expanding peacetime economy.

This expanding economy includes many new industries. Dos Passos explores the potential, and the abuses, of aviation...