This book analyzes the distribution of the urban population in an industrialized country. The USA was chosen as the object of the study because it had, at the time of writing, in 1956, the largest population for which homogeneous and comparable statistics were available. The first step in the quantitative analysis of population distribution, according to the method suggested here, is the breaking up of the total population into its components: the industries in which people earn their livi...

"Makes a reader feel like a time traveler plopped down among men who were by turns vicious and visionary."—The Christian Science MonitorThe modern American economy was the creation of four men: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan. They were the giants of the Gilded Age, a moment of riotous growth that established America as the richest, most inventive, and most productive country on the planet.A...

A Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Winner of the Bancroft Prize. "No one has written a better book about a city…Nature's Metropolis is elegant testimony to the proposition that economic, urban, environmental, and business history can be as graceful, powerful, and fascinating as a novel." —Kenneth T. Jackson, Boston Globe

An energy industry insider delivers hard truths about the reality of fracking.Conventional wisdom has North America entering a new era of energy abundance thanks to shale gas. But has industry been honest? Cold, Hungry and in the Dark argues that declining productivity combined with increasing demand will trigger a crisis that will cause prices to skyrocket, damage the economy, and have a profound impact on the lives of nearly every North American.Re...

"Superb . . . the best one-volume economic history of the United States in a long time and, perhaps, ever." — NewsweekIn this illuminating history, John Steele Gordon tells the extraordinary story of the world's first economic superpower. He shows how the American economy became not only the world's largest, but also its most dynamic and innovative. Combining its English political inheritance with its diverse, ambitious population, the nation was able to de...

New York Times–Bestselling Author: "Should be ready by anyone who owns a microwave, or an iPod, or a table lamp, which is to say everyone." —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth ExtinctionA Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the YearCoal is still a significant source of power in the United States—and coal mining is still a deadly and environmentally destructive industry. Much of the carbon...

Company town: The very phrase sounds un-American. Yet company towns are the essence of America. Hershey bars, Corning glassware, Kohler bathroom fixtures, Maytag washers, Spam -- each is the signature product of a company town in which one business, for better or worse, exercises a grip over the population. In The Company Town, Hardy Green, who has covered American business for over a decade, offers a compelling analysis of the emergence of these communities and their role in shap...

The story of America is a story of dreamers and defaulters. It is also a story of dramatic financial panics that defined the nation, created its political parties, and forced tens of thousands to escape their creditors to new towns in Texas, Florida, and California. As far back as 1792, these panics boiled down to one simple question: Would Americans pay their debts—or were we just a nation of deadbeats?From the merchant William Duer’s attempts to speculate on post–Revolutionary Wa...

The Union Pacific is the largest and the most powerful railroad in the country. The railroad has been in service since 1862, some 151 years. The Union Pacific is older than any other American Class I railroad today with the Kansas City Southern coming in at second at 116 years. In that time the railroad has become not only one of the most highly respected institutions in the nation but also has seen nearly every major railroading event in our country's history, and accordingly has a very l...

From the first, U.S. railroads have carried coal from mines to docks, steel mills, and power plants across the country. In this authoritative book spanning the whole of that history, from the mid-nineteenth century to present, noted rail author Brian Solomon explores the railroads and hardware that have transported the fossil fuels that made America work. Brilliant period and contemporary photographs convey the drama of the enterprise: the very long—and very heavy—trains powering up mounta...

In this volume, Michael P. Malone provides a succinct interpretive biography of James J. Hill, the "Empire Builder"-so called for his work in developing the region of the United States between the Great Lakes and the Pacific Northwest.Malone explores Hill’s complex life and personality, his activities and interests, and recreates both the story of the railroad race to the Pacific and the complex interactions involved in the development of the region."Michael Malone has writ...

The role of large-scale business enterprise—big business and its managers—during the formative years of modern capitalism (from the 1850s until the 1920s) is delineated in this pathmarking book. Alfred Chandler, Jr., the distinguished business historian, sets forth the reasons for the dominance of big business in American transportation, communications, and the central sectors of production and distribution.