Reviews
An original and fascinating book that rewards the reader with discerning insights into the genesis of American industry... The author writes with verve and a captivating command of nuance, insight, breadth and in-depth analysis... In sum, both historians and economists would benefit from closely engaging with the arguments in this fine addition to the bookshelf on the early sources of American industrial supremacy.
Manufacturing Advantage is an important addition to the field of policy history and an equally important contribution to scholarship in several other historical disciplines, including business history, history of technology, and military history. Her analytical framework of "national security capitalism" offers an important new perspective for scholars in the above fields.
A pathbreaking, long-awaited study for scholars of the early republic. Manufacturing Advantage is well researched and well written.
Manufacturing Advantage retells an iconic story in an unconventional way. By locating New England's nineteenth-century industrial revolution in a global context, Schakenbach Regele shows how public policy and the state shaped the business strategy of the region's leading small arms and textile manufactures—with consequences that reverberated not only across the region but also around the world.
Lindsay Schakenbach Regele's important book carefully chronicles the role of the federal government in managing the industrial development of the United States in its earliest decades. She shows how the state, in myriad ways, enabled, accelerated, and influenced the industrial economy of the new republic. This book does away with one-sided celebrations of the entrepreneurial genius of the Samuel Slaters and Francis Cabot Lowells and debunks the myth that the United States economy was ever in some exceptional and peculiar way devoid of powerful state interventions. While others have ignored the state, Regele sees the rise of a 'national security capitalism.' A must-read for anyone interested in US economic history.
An engaging and timely examination of the connections between the federal government, national security, imperialism, and the domestic economy during the antebellum period.
Book Details
Series Editor's Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. "Our Naked Troops"
Chapter 2. The Political Economy of Guns and Textiles
Chapter 3. Embargo and War
Chapter 4. Financing Industry through
Series Editor's Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. "Our Naked Troops"
Chapter 2. The Political Economy of Guns and Textiles
Chapter 3. Embargo and War
Chapter 4. Financing Industry through Florida
Chapter 5. Managing New Markets
Chapter 6. Industrial Manifest Destiny
Conclusion
Appendix A. Terms Related to Textiles
Appendix B. Terms Related to Firearms
Notes