| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Roots of American Industrialization. By David R. Meyer. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. xiv, 333 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-8018-7141-7.)

This book will cheer economic and business historians, but it is likely to infuriate many others. Focusing on the northeastern United States from 1790 to 1860, David R. Meyer places the research of Diane Lindstrom, Allan Pred, Robert Gallman, Kenneth Sokoloff, and others into an overarching interpretation of early American industrialization. Emphasizing rational actors in the private economy, Meyer accounts for economic growth through market interactions among prosperous rural areas, industrializing towns, and dynamic commercial cities. I believe his concentration on "prosperous farmers" and "astute investors" (passim) overlooks important aspects of the story; there are simply no class or ethnic or gender or racial conflicts in sight. Slavery figures mostly as a market for Lynn, Massachusetts, shoemakers.

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