The hemorrhaging of manufacturing in the United States and the devastation it wrought has produced a flood of volumes in history, sociology, and American studies. While there is much to learn from this large and diverse literature, the leitmotif pervading far too much of this work concerns the victimization of workers and communities in the wake of corporate decision-making. This is not to deny that victimization has occurred – it indeed has been devastating. But if we are truly to make sense of deindustrialization, and build alternatives to it, then scholars and activists alike must set these troubles into larger historical and analytical frameworks. Here David Koistinen's Confronting Decline carves out an important space in a very crowded field and makes a compelling contribution.

In the first half of this volume, Koistinen explores the decline of the textile industry in Massachusetts in the 1930s and 1940s. He documents the decline of the industry and its impact in Massachusetts due largely to increasing competition from the burgeoning textile industry in the southern states. Koistinen mainly focusses, however, on the responses fought for by labor, business, and the state to stem this decline. The business community pushed for “retrenchment” – loosening restrictions on working hours for women as well as the reduction in corporate tax rates. A powerful labor movement coupled with the liberal establishment in Massachusetts prevented any major rollbacks of employment legislation, although business achieved some modest tax reduction after lengthy efforts. Alternatively, labor advocated for direct “federal assistance” to establish uniform labor standards across both northern and southern states. Within the activist orientation of the New Deal there were important nascent attempts, particularly the Cotton Textiles Institute's efforts to restrict work hours, yet in the end political resistance shattered any real possible rationalization of the textile market.

Koistinen doesn't stop here, as many scholars have, but goes on to explore how efforts at “economic development” emerged in Massachusetts from this decline of the textile industry. He does not simply offer a review of public policy discussions and initiatives but uses a wider political economic lens to unpack the complex and dynamic relationship that was taking place between the state and the larger business community. In this second half of Confronting Decline he explores how private-sector business organizations such as the New England Council, coupled with state and local government, set in motion a campaign to revitalize the Massachusetts economy. From those efforts came a plethora of ideas and paths not taken. Koistinen, however, documents a little-known piece of history about efforts to improve financing to emerging local firms through a series of venture capital and other business promotion organizations that were fundamental in launching the Massachusetts hi-tech industry, one that ultimately overshadowed the early dominance of both New York City and Los Angeles. Through these efforts, university-based technological prowess at places like MIT was married to a local banking community looking to support these emerging companies. Perhaps the best example Koistinen provides reveals how bankers were the ones who approached Dr. An Wang to offer financial support to the emerging Wang Laboratories (an early personal-computer firm) with offers of assistance to grow his small firm, rather than the more likely situation of entrepreneurs begging banks for loans.

These circumstances were no accident or simply the goodwill of a selected few bankers. Confronting Decline shows how systematic planning created a bridge between the decline of textiles and the growth of hi-tech. Koistinen writes, “The willingness of Boston-area financiers to provide strong backing to local spinoff entrepreneurs stemmed from the earlier decline of traditional manufacturing in the region” (186). This was not just an “industrial policy” to be imposed on the business community by political leaders, but one that evolved through a series of experiments in which both private-sector and state actors participated.

What happened in Massachusetts in the wake of the demise of the textile industry, which led to the launching of hi-tech manufacturing in the Route 128 corridor, provides a stellar example of how communities can recover from deindustrialization. In a neoliberal post-Glass-Steagall Act era of banks so large that they cannot fail, it is unlikely we will see this level of local banking involved in economic development. Yet, as Sean Safford argues in his Why the Garden Club Couldn't Save Youngstown (2009), it takes social networks of business, political, and civic leaders coming together, as we saw in postwar Massachusetts, to drive economic development.

David Koistinen's Confronting Decline is an important contribution to the literature on deindustrialization. He reminds us, first, that history continues far beyond the drama of plant closings, and, in this case, that looking through a longer lens allows us to view important connections that had remained hidden. Second, as scholars are increasingly exploring firms and the larger business community as historical actors, he demonstrates the power of a political economic analysis.