The Dawn of Innovation: The First American Industrial Revolution
An unprecedented 3.9 percent average annual rate of economic growth—sustained for more than a century—propelled the U.S. to global economic leadership. Morris chronicles the remarkable story behind the remarkable number. To begin with, it is a story of American shipwrights frenetically attempting to match Great Britain in building warships during the War of 1812. Peace meant that American industrialists turned to making shoes, stoves, steam engines, and locomotives, yet they still strove to wrest world economic leadership from Britain. Readers soon realize that American capitalists who surmounted daunting technical challenges (through homegrown Yankee ingenuity and through industrial espionage) also solved a formidable social problem. Instead of building British-style Coketowns that enriched a few while immiserating the masses in the factories, America’s economic pioneers spread the benefits of modern productivity throughout a mass-consumption society. Morris concludes with a provocative comparison of the nineteenth-century duel pitting the U.S. against Great Britain and today’s rivalry between China and the U.S. Economic history freighted with social and political relevance. --Bryce Christensen