Making It: Why Manufacturing Still Matters

(Hardback)

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Reporting from places where things were and sometimes still are 'Made in the USA' - Albany, New York, Boston, Detroit, Fort Wayne, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. - longtime New York Times economics correspondent Louis Uchitelle argues that the government has a crucial role to play in making domestic manufacturing possible. Combining brilliant reportage with an incisive economic and political argument, Making It tells the overlooked story of manufacturing's still-vital role in the United States and how it might expand.

Reviews

Praise for Making It:

"Uchitelle's evidence comes largely from years of visiting factories and knowledgeably interviewing workers, management, owners, and public officialsvaluable evidence that makes this book worth reading."
Choice

"Readers interested in U.S. labor and economics history, globalization, and political economy will find Uchitelles latest to be deeply engrossing, convincing, and thoughtfully written."
Booklist

"A robust and fatalistic argument for a return to American greatness."
Kirkus Reviews

"An elegant swan song for a lost era of U.S. manufacturing greatness. . . Uchitelle convincingly debunks explanations that blame supposedly unskilled workers for their own plight."
Publishers Weekly

"Is there any way to bring back the manufacturing jobs that once supported the American working class Louis Uchitelle, who so ably chronicled the massive layoffs of the 80s and 90s for the New York Times, thinks yesif we are willing to accept the fact that manufacturing has always been publicly subsidized and owes the public something in return. If we should ever again have a rational and enlightened federal government, they couldnt do better than to start by reading this book."
Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed

"Both a lamentation and a blueprint for manufacturing in America, this compelling and humane book demonstrates the intimate connection between good work and national well-being. Making It is economics with a heart."
Mike Rose, author of The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker

"Heres a surprise: it is Big Government that makes manufacturing possibleyes, even here. And we better stop thinking otherwise if we want to compete in the world economy. Louis Uchitelle, the great New York Times journalistand, for me, one of our best writers on the economymakes the case for `making it. In this wonderfully readable book, he explains why the future of manual labor rests in our own hands."
Tom Geoghegan, author of Only One Thing Can Save Us: Why America Needs a New Kind of Labor Movement

"Manufacturing goods in the United States rather than overseas matters in ways few understand as deeply as Louis Uchitelle, who for three decades has chronicled how government policy damaged this value adding sector of the economy."
David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality

"Louis Uchitelle brings the vital importance of American manufacturing to life. . . He effectively describes the important role manufacturing can and must play in our economy and delivers a wake-up call regarding the aggressive government action necessary to ensure that manufacturing remains the `foundation of our nations power."
Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-MI)

Praise for The Disposable American:
"A tour de force of reporting, analysis, andbest of allsuggested solutions."
Barbara Ehrenreich

"A strong case that the whole middle class is at risk."
The New York Times

"An overdue wake-up call that could start making the wisdom of layoffs that much less conventional."
San Francisco Chronicle

"Incisive. . . . An airtight case against the common wisdom that favors job cuts."
Businessweek

"Uchitelle writes about the moral failings of our modern corporate structure with deep and persuasive insight. That alone makes the book a must-read."
Detroit Free Press

Author Bio

Louis Uchitelle covered economics and labor issues for the New York Times for twenty-five years. Before that, as a foreign correspondent for Associated Press, he covered the American occupation of the Dominican Republic in the 1960s and the rise of a guerrilla movement in Argentina. He is the author of The Disposable American and lives in Scarsdale, New York.