Small, Medium, Large

“Colleen Dunlavy’s Small, Medium, Large is a tour de force, providing a fresh take on the triumph of mass production and mass consumption in the United States. Debunking much of the conventional wisdom, Dunlavy provides a compelling account of the crucial role that state policy played in actively promoting the standardization that was foundational to the Fordist production model and to America’s consumption-driven growth regime. This is essential reading for students of American political and political-economic development.” Kathleen Thelen, MIT “This is a must-read volume for anyone interested in the history of the U.S. economy. Dunlavy’s prodigious archival research is persuasive in replacing Henry Ford with the unlikely figure of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover as the principal architect of standardized mass production.” Fred Block, University of California, Davis “With a rare confluence of expertise in the histories of technology, business, and policy, Dunlavy compellingly challenges a century of explanations for America’s industrial upsurge after World War I. In a tightly packed yet elegant narrative, her robust evidence and argument show – to our surprise –that federal policies protected manufacturers from inefficient market forces, making possible the nation’s industrial ascent.” Pamela Walker Laird, University of Colorado Denver “As the world struggles to shift the trajectory of technology from dirty to clean, Colleen Dunlavy’s fascinating history of the success of the standardization movement in American manufacturing reminds us of just how plastic technology can be, and how responsive to political determination.” Charles Sabel, Columbia Law School “This book, based on extensive archival research, shows that the standardisation on which today’s economies depend is the product of a close partnership between US public and private sectors, subsequently spread across the world.” Martin Wolf, The Financial Times, Best summer books of 2024: Economics