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Small, Medium, Large: How Government Made the U.s. into a Manufacturing Powerhouse - Couverture rigide

Dunlavy, Colleen A.

 
9781509561735: Small, Medium, Large: How Government Made the U.s. into a Manufacturing Powerhouse
Couverture rigide
ISBN 10 : 1509561730 ISBN 13 : 9781509561735
Editeur : Polity Press, 2024

Synopsis

We live in a world of seemingly limitless consumer choice. Yet, as every shopper knows without thinking about it, many everyday goods - from beds to batteries to printer paper - are available in a finite number of "standard sizes." What makes these sizes "standard" is an agreement among competing firms to make or sell products with the same limited dimensions. But how did firms - often hotly competing firms - reach such collective agreements?

In exploring this question, Colleen Dunlavy puts the history of mass production and distribution in an entirely new light. She reveals that, despite the widely publicized model offered by Henry Ford, mass production techniques did not naturally diffuse throughout the U.S. economy. On the contrary, formidable market forces blocked their diffusion. It was only under the cover of collectively agreed-upon, industrywide standard sizes - orchestrated by the federal government - that competing firms were able to break free of market forces and transition to mass production and distribution. Without government promotion of standard sizes, the twentieth-century American variety of capitalism would have looked markedly less "Fordist."

Small, Medium, Large will make all of us think differently about the everyday consumer choices we take for granted.

Also available as an audiobook.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

À propos de l'auteur

Colleen Dunlavy is Professor Emerita of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research explores the historical relationship between political and economic change in the U.S. and Europe. Her publications include the prize-winning Politics and Industrialization: Early Railroads in the United States and Prussia. She lives in Washington, DC.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
Polity Press
Date d'édition
2024
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
1509561730
ISBN 13 
9781509561735
Reliure
Relié
Nombre de pages
240
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible