Description: Manufacturing Catastrophe tracks the history of industrialization, deindustrialization, and globalization in Massachusetts over the past two centuries. It a history of wrenching economic transformation as told from the perspective of everyday people: European peasants traveling the oceans in search of industrial work, runaway factory owners venturing out in search of cheaper labor abroad, and harried local policymakers trying to recover from repeated bouts of economic cataclysm. For those concerned about the future of American industry in the face of global competition, it provides critical lessons on how some of America's pioneering industrial cities have weathered the tempests of economic upheaval and industrial rebirth.
Review Quotes: "A myth-busting, fresh look at America's long, unhappy romance with low-road capitalism. Nichols reveals the devastating boom and bust cycles of economic change as New Bedford and Fall River moved from whaling to textile to service. Yet his affecting portrait of small-town resilience and worker tenacity points toward a different future-and toward new models of growth premised on prosperity and stability." -- Dorothy Sue Cobble, Rutgers University
"Challenging a simplistic narrative of post-industrial decline, Nichols offers a sweeping, two-century history of two ordinary cities made and remade by the crises of global capitalism. Rather than a single rise, or fall, Nichols shows how booms and busts cascade over the centuries through waves of new migrations." -- Louis Hyman, Johns Hopkins University"In this elegantly written, thoughtful first book, Nichols presents a micro-study of the New Bedford-Nantucket region in Massachusetts as it passed through several stages of industrialization between 1800 and 2020." -- Douglas Steeples, Choice"thoroughly researched and well argued." -- Choice