Different chapters of the book correspond to different chronological eras after the discovery and colonization of the Americas and to different metaphorical mindsets as manifested in the writings of the authors considered. In chapter 2, "Surveying the Virgin Land: The Documents of Exploration and Colonization, 1500–1740", the comparison of the land to an untouched, virginal paradise begins the exploration. Chapter 3, "Laying Waste Her Fields of Plenty: The Eighteenth Century", discusses the romanticized agrarian and pastoral ideals that coloured the view of America, especially in its comparisons to ideal lands like Elysium and Arcadia, and the consequences that arose from such ideals, such as the exploitation and alteration of the land. Chapter 4, "Singing Her Past and Singing Her Praises: The Nineteenth Century", examines the dual images of Mother and Mistress in the land, as well as the frustration of the pastoral impulse with the closing of the American frontier and the victory of the industrialized North in the American Civil War. Finally, chapter 5, "Making It with Paradise: The Twentieth Century", deals with the increase of industrialization and the yearning both "to return to and to master the beautiful and bountiful femininity of the new continent." (139)