Shaun S. Nichols is an Assistant Professor of History at Boise State University. He is a native of Fall River, Massachusetts.
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 *