Books in the American Business, Politics, and Society series

Hinterland Dreams: The Political Economy of a Midwestern City tracks the growth of the city of La Crosse, Wisconsin, during the nineteenth century, demonstrating that government institutions and policies were as important as landscapes and business boosters in determining a small city's success.

Focusing on advertising and public relations guru Moss Kendrix, Ebony publisher John H. Johnson, and Life photographer Gordon Parks, Brenna Wynn Greer chronicles how black capitalists made the market work for racial progress on their way to making money.

The Medical Metropolis offers the first comparative, historical account of how big medicine shaped American cities in the postindustrial era. Taking Pittsburgh and Houston as case studies, Andrew T. Simpson traces the effects the changing business of American health care had on policy, privatization, and technological innovation.

They helped conquer the greatest armies ever assembled. Yet no sooner had they tasted victory after World War II than American generals suddenly found themselves governing their former enemies, devising domestic policy and making critical economic decisions for people they had just defeated in battle. In postwar Germany and Japan, this authority fell into the hands of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, along with a cadre of military officials like Lucius Clay and the Detroit banker Joseph Dodge.In Sovereign Soldiers, Grant Madsen tells the story of how this cast of characters assumed an unfamiliar and often untold policymaking role. Seeking to avoid the harsh punishments meted out after World War I, military leaders believed they had to rebuild and rehabilitate their former enemies; if they failed they might cause an even deadlier World War III. Although they knew economic recovery would be critical in their effort, none was schooled in economics. Beyond their hopes, they managed to rebuild not only their former enemies but the entire western economy during the early Cold War.Madsen shows how army leaders learned from the people they governed, drawing expertise that they ultimately brought back to the United States during the Eisenhower Administration in 1953. Sovereign Soldiers thus traces the circulation of economic ideas around the globe and back to the United States, with the American military at the helm.

Market Rules explains in accessible language how federal laws, regulatory rulings, and bankers' decisions shaped the financial industry as it existed at the time of the 2008 financial crisis.

At the time of its collapse in 2001, Enron was one of the largest companies in the world, boasting revenue of over $100 billion. During the 1990s economic boom, the Houston, Texas-based energy company had diversified into commodities and derivatives trading and many other ventures—some more legal than others. In the lead-up to Enron''s demise, it was revealed that the company''s financial success was sustained by a creatively planned and well-orchestrated accounting fraud. The story of Enron and its disastrous aftermath has since become a symbol of corporate excess and negligence, framed as an exceptional event in the annals of American business.With Risk and Ruin, Gavin Benke places Enron''s fall within the larger history and culture of late twentieth-century American capitalism. In many ways, Benke argues, Enron was emblematic of the transitions that characterized the era. Like Enron, the American economy had shifted from old industry to the so-called knowledge economy, from goods to finance, and from national to global modes of production.Benke dives deep into the Enron archives, analyzing company newsletters, board meeting minutes, and courtroom transcriptions to chart several interconnected themes across Enron''s history: the changing fortunes of Houston; the shifting attitudes toward business strategy, deregulation, and the function of the market among policy makers and business leaders; and the cultural context that accompanied and encouraged these broader political and economic changes. Considered against this backdrop, Enron takes on new significance as a potent reminder of the unaddressed issues still facing national and global economies.Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University.

Roaring Metropolis reconstructs the ideas and activism of urban capitalists in the early twentieth century as they advocated extensive government spending on an array of social programs. Focusing on Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, the book traces businessmen's quest to build cities and nurture an urban citizenry friendly to capitalism.

In The Metropolitan Airport, Nicholas Dagen Bloom chronicles the untold story of JFK International's complicated and turbulent relationship with the New York City metropolitan region. It is an indispensable book for those who seek to understand the revolutionary impact of airports on the modern American city.

Focusing on the state of New York, home to the first American banks, utilities, canals, and transportation infrastructure projects, Building the Empire State examines the origins of American capitalism by tracing how and why business corporations were first introduced into the economy of the early republic.

Written by one of the nation's foremost urban development experts, Convention Center Follies exposes the inner workings of America's convention center boom through case studies of Chicago, Atlanta, and St. Louis.

Albert J. Churella chronicles the history of the Pennsylvania Railroad within the context of social, economic, and technological changes of nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. The story of the PRR illuminates broad themes in U.S. history, including labor relations, the relationship between business and government, and technological advances.

Richly illustrated with archival photos, this comprehensive study of the American department store industry traces the changing economic and political contexts that brought about the decline of downtown shopping districts and the rise of big-box stores and suburban malls.

In the nineteenth century, politicians transformed a disease-infested bog on the shore of Lake Michigan into an intensely managed waterscape supporting the life and economy of Chicago. Liquid Capital shows how Chicago's waterfront became both an economic hub and the site of many precedent-setting decisions about public land use.

Examining the professional lives of a variety of businessmen and their advocates with the intent of taking their words seriously, Chad Pearson paints a vivid picture of an epic contest between industrial employers and labor, and challenges our comfortable notions of Progressive Era reformers.

Remaking the Rust Belt tells the story of how local leaders throughout the Rust Belt adapted internationally circulating ideas about postindustrial redevelopment to create the jobs and amenities they believed would attract middle-class professionals, but in so doing widened and deepened economic inequality among urban residents.

Drawing on previously unavailable archives, Paying the Toll describes the high-stakes struggles for control of the Golden Gate Bridge, and offers a rare inside look at the powerful and secretive agency that built a regional transportation empire with its toll revenue.

Sound Business tunes in on a neglected aspect of U.S. media history, the role newspaper owners played in the development of radio. This rigorously researched and balanced history of the news business and government regulation expands our understanding of mid-twentieth-century America and offers lessons for the digital age.

The People's Network reconstructs the story of U.S. and Canadian independent telephone companies which challenged the Bell System's market domination in the twentieth century, linking the fight to control telecommunications to dueling political philosophies: regional versus national identity, local versus centralized power.

Making Seafood Sustainable shows how and why sustainable fishing and seafood management can work by looking at past success stories in dealing with the global overfishing crisis, especially in American waters.

In Bank Notes and Shinplasters, Joshua R. Greenberg shows how Americans accumulated and wielded monetary information in order to navigate the early republic's chaotic bank note system. He demonstrates that the shift to federally authorized paper money in the Civil War era eliminated the public's need for detailed financial knowledge.

Presenting a new twist on classic themes of American economic and working-class history, The Long Gilded Age considers the interlocking roles of politics, labor, and internationalism in the ideologies and institutions that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century.