An engaging look at a cornerstone of economic growth.
Efficient production methods are now taken for granted, but it was not always so, says this study.
The processes by which the United States became an economic superpower are still being unraveled, but University of Wisconsin historian Dunlavy provides another piece of the puzzle with this short, pithy book. At first glance, the subject of manufacturing standardization might not seem an interesting one, yet this book turns out to be a fascinating read. Dunlavy looks back to the early years of the 20th century, when manufacturing was largely based on the production of goods—everything from beds to bricks—in a bewildering array of sizes and types. Henry Ford’s methods had shown the value of mass production, but the idea had not yet spread throughout the economy. The dominant business thinking was that consumers preferred wide variety over low prices. This changed with World War I, when the government encouraged manufacturers of war-related material to adopt mass-production techniques for greater efficiency and less waste. It worked, but many companies returned to their old ways after the end of the war. Enter Herbert Hoover, who became secretary of commerce in 1921 (and later president). He created the Division of Simplified Practice, which pumped out reams of data to show the benefits. The methods spread, and by World War II the economy turned into a mass-production powerhouse. Standardization would also show the value of cooperation between government, businesses, and industry associations. Dunlavy recounts the story with an efficiency that matches her subject, making her book relevant for anyone interested in the history of business.
An engaging look at a cornerstone of economic growth.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2024
ISBN: 9781509561735
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Polity
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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