The history of modern liberalism has been hotly debated in contemporary politics and the academy. Here, Judith Stein uses the steel industry--long considered fundamental to the U.S. economy--to examine liberal policies and priorities after World War II. In a provocative revision of postwar American history, she argues that it was the primacy of foreign commitments and the outdated economic policies of the state, more than the nation's racial conflicts, that transformed American liberalism from the powerful progressivism of the New Deal to the feeble policies of the 1990s. Stein skillfully integrates a number of narratives usually treated in isolation--labor, civil rights, politics, business, and foreign policy--while underscoring the state's focus on the steel industry and its workers. By showing how those who intervened in the industry treated such economic issues as free trade and the globalization of steel production in isolation from the social issues of the day--most notably civil rights and the implementation of affirmative action--Stein advances a larger argument about postwar liberalism. Liberal attempts to address social inequalities without reference to the fundamental and changing workings of the economy, she says, have led to the foundering of the New Deal state. |Using the steel industry to examine liberal policies and priorities after World War II, Stein shows that economic policy--not racial conflict--led to the feeble liberalism of the 1990s.
About the Author :
Judith Stein, professor of history at the Graduate School and City College of the City University of New York, is author of The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society.
Review :
"Running Steel, Running America is a provocative and brilliant account of postwar American politics, economics, and race, which weaves together a number of narratives often treated in isolation: labor, civil rights and affirmative action, politics, business, and international trade policy. This is one of the most sophisticated treatments of race and the modern American economy to come along in years." -- Eric Arnesen, University of Illinois at Chicago
"[A] passionate book. . . . Combines old and new elements -- an uncompromising old liberal faith that governments can salvage entire industries and provide every son a job as good as his father's (and this is, necessarily, a book about men), with a sort of populist suspicion of the current bipartisan religion of free trade and globalization given political voice by Gephart, Buchanan, and Perot and intellectual voice by Dani Rodrik, William Greider, and the Sierra Club. It is thus an oppositional book, a distinctly minority view on what government has done but especially what it has not done but could and ought to do." -- Reviews in American History
"[A] remarkably sophisticated work. . . . Stein's book is a model of meticulously researched, dispassionate scholarship. Few serious historians of the postwar United States can afford not to read [this book]." -- Law and History Review
"Judith Stein's important book explores one of the great riddles of our time -- why it was that a civil rights revolution dedicated to equal economic opportunity should have been followed by the disappearance of decent jobs for so many African Americans. Her case in point is the steel industry where, just as the EEOC lawyers triumphed, the industry collapsed and the contested jobs were gone forever. Stein documents, in fine detail, the indifference of the litigators -- their willful indifference -- to whether or not they were actually expanding the job opportunities of black workers. More important, Stein suggests, was the disjuncture between the nation's economic and social policies, its failure to understand that the corollary of equal opportunity was the preservation of American jobs from predatory foreign competition. Stein's book is a triumph of heroic research and clear thinking, and essential reading for anyone who cares about this country's festering race problems." -- David Brody, author of In Labor's Cause: Main Themes on the History of the American Worker
"One of the most important examinations of race and labor to appear in the 1990s. . . . An original, well-argued, and thought-provoking account of the American steel industry in the post-World War II world. . . . Insights about American political economy, the labor movement, Civil Rights strategies, and the law leap out on almost every page of this book. Through the lens of the steel industry, Stein usefully reframes the postwar historiography not only of race and liberalism but also of trade, economic planning, and foreign policy." -- Labor History
"Stein's important book about post-WW II American politics, economics, and race is an innovative interpretation of recent US history." -- CHOICE
"This is a marvelous and important book, an immaculately researched, powerfully written analysis of key issues in U.S. economic and social policy from the 1950s to the 1980s." -- Business History
