Small, Medium, Large: How Government Made the U.S. into a Manufacturing Powerhouse, published by Polity Books in 2024, offers a bold reinterpretation of American industrial history. Challenging the myth of free-market supremacy, the book reveals how strategic state intervention—from wartime production to Cold War R&D—shaped the rise of U.S. manufacturing. It highlights the role of public investment, procurement, and policy in scaling firms and fostering innovation. Timely and incisive, this is essential reading for anyone interested in rethinking industrial strategy, reshoring production, or understanding how the state can drive economic transformation in an age of geopolitical and technological change.
This book made Martin Wolf's list of Best Summer Books of 2024 in the Financial Times and was noted briefly in a recent Foreign Affairs article on industrial policy.
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New Books in Economic and Business History