Land of Promise bookcover

Land of Promise

An Economic History of the United States
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Description

"[An] ambitious economic history of the united States...rich with details." ?—David Leonhardt, New York Times Book Review

How did a weak collection of former British colonies become an industrial, financial, and military colossus? 

From the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries, the American economy has been transformed by wave after wave of emerging technology: the steam engine, electricity, the internal combustion engine, computer technology. Yet technology-driven change leads to growing misalignment between an innovative economy and anachronistic legal and political structures until the gap is closed by the modernization of America's institutions—often amid upheavals such as the Civil War and Reconstruction and the Great Depression and World War II.

When the U.S. economy has flourished, government and business, labor and universities, have worked together in a never-ending project of economic nation building. As the United States struggles to emerge from the Great Recession, Michael Lind clearly demonstrates that Americans, since the earliest days of the republic, have reinvented the American economy - and have the power to do so again.

Product Details

PublisherHarper
Publish DateApril 17, 2012
Pages592
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconHardback
EAN/UPC9780061834806
Dimensions9.0 X 6.0 X 1.4 inches | 28.8 pounds

About the Author

Michael Lind is cofounder of the New America Foundation and policy director of its Economic Growth Program. His first three books of political journalism and history—The Next American Nation, Up from Conservatism, and Vietnam: The Necessary War—were all New York Times Notable Books. He writes frequently for the New York Times, Financial Times, and Salon.

Reviews

The book is rich with details…among the joys of Lind’s book are small, little-known stories like the one about the Wright brothers that have clear relevance today. — New York Times Book Review

“[An] illuminating new book…” — David Brooks, New York Times

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