World's End deals with the rights of Native Americans and with agrarian reform. By dividing the novel between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, Boyle shows how the oppression of Native Americans began with colonization even though the issue has only begun to receive attention in the twentieth century. Boyle also addresses the issue of property ownership and the disparity of wealth in the United States as the reader witnesses how the Van Wart family maintains its manor over the generations. A related issue that Boyle deals with is the Communist movement and leftist politics from the Great Depression to the Vietnam War.