Overview

American economic history has traditionally been told as a narrative of industrialization and affluence collapsing into globalization and industrial decay. Offering a reappraisal of this pattern, Manufacturing Catastrophe traces the successive rise and fall of the whaling, textile, garment, electronics, and high-tech industries in Massachusetts over the past two hundred years. It shows how business, labor, and political leaders repeatedly mobilized the lure of crisisDLcheap labor, low taxes, and generous manufacturing subsidiesDLto pull and push both capital and workers across the continents, repeatedly remaking the pioneering industrial cities of Fall River and New Bedford. WorkersDLranging from migrating Azorean seamen to British weavers to Quebecois farmersDLand capitalistsDLincluding mobile manufacturers, globetrotting whalers, and multinational conglomeratorsDLparticipated in the creation of regional growth and, with it, American industrial ascendance. Exploring the paradoxical and recurring coexistence of high unemployment and labor shortages in these cities, this book explains why recovery and growth have not necessarily translated into long-term prosperity. In doing so, it illuminates how economic catastrophe was, ironically, a critical ingredient in the making of America's industrial hegemony.

Full Product Details

9780197665329

Table of Contents

Reviews

A myth-busting, fresh look at America's long, unhappy romance with low-road capitalism. Nichols reveals the devastating boom and bust cycles of economic change as New Bedford and Fall River moved from whaling to textile to service. Yet his affecting portrait of small-town resilience and worker tenacity points toward a different future-and toward new models of growth premised on prosperity and stability. * Dorothy Sue Cobble, Rutgers University * Challenging a simplistic narrative of post-industrial decline, Nichols offers a sweeping, two-century history of two ordinary cities made and remade by the crises of global capitalism. Rather than a single rise, or fall, Nichols shows how booms and busts cascade over the centuries through waves of new migrations. * Louis Hyman, Johns Hopkins University *

Author Information

Shaun S. Nichols is an Assistant Professor of History at Boise State University. He is a native of Fall River, Massachusetts.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available