After providing a background to agricultural policy in the two regions, the authors focus on specific issues including:

• development policy and trade intervention up to 1930
• a review of the major adjustments to agricultural policy in the world depression of the 1930s
• agricultural adjustment and trade interaction between 1940 and 1973, including the enlargement of the EC, the formation of CAP and the foundation of GATT
• an examination of the growth in agricultural protection in the 1980s and the effects of the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations on trade conflicts
• the EU's 1992 reform of CAP
• policy reforms in the 1990s in the US and Western Europe and the prospects for the future

The book concludes that although there continue to be substantial differences in agricultural policy between the EU and the US, they are diminishing as a result of a fundamental similarity of the forces pushing for reform and the harmonizing effects of international negotiations.