This is one of those books that states the obvious, that makes us look at the emperor’s new clothes (the obsession with the information age and everything digital over anything else) and that should be read by those who are in power in government, in private companies, in academia. How apt to start a new year, 2014, with a fresh perspective for the USA, a country which, in a sort of reverse Faustian bargain sacrificed its manufacturing industry, the one that contributed enormously to nation-building and world admiration, and domination, in exchange for low cost and low quality goods produced mostly in Asia, where those countries, notably China, got away with all the know-how and the knowledge behind the business of manufacturing.
To quote the publishers: “In Made in the USA, Vaclav Smil powerfully rebuts the notion that manufacturing is a relic of predigital history and that the loss of American manufacturing is a desirable evolutionary step toward a pure service economy. Smil argues that no advanced economy can prosper without a strong, innovative manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates. Reversing a famous information economy dictum, Smil argues that serving potato chips is not as good as making microchips.”
Made in the USA : the rise and retreat of American manufacturing. Vaclav Smil. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2013.