The manufacturing sector once supplied more than 30 percent of all jobs in the United States, but now the share is reduced to about 10 percent. Two books from the MIT Press, however, claim that manufacturing means more than what numbers indicate. Made in the USA and America's Assembly Line claim that manufacturing has been the basis of the material affluence and transformed Americans’ way of life forever. Since the success formula, the assembly line, and mass production have become obsolete, workers, cities, and economic health have become troubled—as can be seen in the dreary photo images of modern-day Detroit. These books look back to find the origin of these problems and provide a narrative of the rise and demise of American manufacturing. Vaclav Smil's Made in the USA covers a wide array of technological achievements since the Civil War, and Nye's America's Assembly Line focuses on the cultural significance of mass production.

Smil, in his first three chapters, retraces the development of American manufacturing and provides a compendium of important inventions and innovations, from the Bessemer process to computer and automation technology. Chapter 4 explains how factors of success during the century that followed the Civil War became factors of retreat. High energy intensity was less of a problem until rising oil prices revealed weakness and targeted the iron and steel industry as its first victim. The auto industry, tethered by its large capacity for mass production, high-cost labor management, and poor designs followed the same path. He presents some short-lived success cases in the electronics sector that ended when the Asian dragons created inroads in the domestic and international market, summarized in the subsection, “‘Made in China’ and the Walmart Nation” (p. 147).

In the later chapters, Smil examines the possibility of reviving manufacturing but adopts a pessimistic perspective, citing “too far global” supply chains (p. 180) as a result of pursuing short-term cost reduction, low-quality labor force resulting from the broken education system, mismanaged government budget, and an international trading scheme that is not mutually beneficial. Since the author is also skeptical of “the superior job-creating capacity of startups” (p. 216) and high-tech companies, he calls for measures to revitalize the overall manufacturing sector, such as supporting domestic manufacturing, investing in innovation, and rebalancing global trade and finance.

Although his call for the revival of manufacturing is compelling, the book leaves some questions unanswered. First of all, Smil makes suggestions regarding issues only at the macro policy level, barely discussing what can be done by manufacturers to create jobs again in a new environment. For example, he introduces robotization and 3D printing as recent fundamental changes, but does not offer a view of what kind of changes producers must undertake to cope with such a change. His call for smart industrial and trade policy can be read as a call for protectionist measures to keep less competitive producers alive.

Nye's book complements Smil's work and focuses on a more concrete and iconic case—the assembly line. He places trust in the evolutionary and gradualist approach, because “only in retrospect does the victor in this contest seem obvious” (p. 3). The assembly line “was not a final result, but a part of an ongoing cultural process” (p. 7). In chapter 2, Nye shows how the assembly line integrated what already existed: interchangeable parts, the Edisonian power system, division of labor, and scientific management. None of these elements were ever sufficient for or equal to the assembly line, which was a complete reorganization of space and work designed to pursue maximum efficiency. Ford and his engineers tried to solve the problem of the hour under the existing conditions and engage in constant communication. Nye emphasizes that they had a great vision, but they were not tied to any particular method to achieve the goal. It may sound paradoxical that such a fundamental change was not put into action with a grand-scale plan, but that is the gist of Nye's discussion.

The author continues on a broader scale, offering a discerning analysis of how the public's reception of a new technology affects the trajectory of innovation. Higher productivity led to higher wages, and Ford's five-dollar day “linked production and consumption” (p. 31) by providing higher purchasing power. In chapters 3 to 5, he documents how the assembly line was welcomed both inside and outside the United States as a symbol of efficiency and prosperity of the capitalist system. Perhaps such a huge celebration led to “misremembering” and “oversimplifying” history and caused concern about “a metaphor for an unwanted modernity” (p. 95). Although the Second World War and the Cold War provided fresh momentum for the dissemination of the assembly line (chapter 6), discontent with identical products, identical tasks, and harsh working conditions soon grew (chapter 7).

Nye finds the answer to why the American auto industries failed to overcome the hardships they faced in the 1970s in an evolutionary concept—path-dependence (chapter 8). With established institutions and networks of interested parties, they could only strengthen Fordism, for example, by increasing top-down control and speed. American manufactures had forgotten what made the assembly line possible—gradual but continuous improvements and effective communication between managers and engineers—when Japanese manufactures reinterpreted them to introduce lean and just-in-time production. Now, even the lean system faces new challenges of globalized labor and higher environmental standards, and lower wages have broken the link between production and consumption (chapters 9 and 10). Nye reckons that “fundamental transformations are unpredictable” (p. 264), but that new industries and companies with little bureaucracy, experimental managers, and active communication between departments will be the seedbed for innovation.

These two books provide a very readable and informative history of American manufacturing and offer satisfying accounts of the reasons for its demise from different viewpoints. Those who want to tackle the current problems of industry will find useful insights from these valuable books.