I believe it was once reviewed either in Trains or Classic Trains. The First American Industrial Revolution, by Charles R. Morris, published by PublicAffairsTM, New York, both soft and hard cover, 372 pages, black and white photographs and drawings, ISBN 978-1-61039-049-1# .Charles Morris is a lawyer, banker, and definitely an author, with three other well-received books to his credit. Most of us have learned the conventional history of the United States, its early beginnings as an English colony, its War of Independence, its other wars, its political history, slavery and its abolition, but few up us have studied its economic and technological history in any depth. This book meets that need in a straightforward, interesting, and easy-to-read text. It is well organized, with chronology subordinate to technology. The book discusses mostly the 19th Century, when the USA moved from a basically agricultural economic base to a combination of agriculture, raw materials, and finished consumer and industrial goods, all the while catching up with and surpassing the British economy.
There are useful tables of statistics charting this growth, but the story is told mainly through histories of certain of industries and people important for that growth. The inventions and the technology, including those taken from abroad, are explained, with many explanations assisted by high-quality line drawings. The individual industry and company histories are chosen to be typical, rather than all-inclusive. The comparisons with English industries show why the United States was surpassed it economically before the
You might also be interested in a couple of other books which relate history, global affairs, and railways. I mentioned them briefly in a piece I wrote for Railway Age a couple of years ago. Copy-pasted below:
Engines of War: How Wars Were Won & Lost on the Railways, by Christian Wolmar, dwells not just on the obvious armored rolling stock, troop trains, and mobile artillery involved in wartime railroading, but looks equally into the global strategizing that prompted construction of thousand of miles of new track into previously undeveloped territories. In fact, Wolmar echoes a belief held by many historians that the race between Britain, France, Germany, and Russia to build railways into the Middle East—at a time when coal was giving way to oil as the fuel that would drive air, land, and sea transport into the 20th century—was as much responsible for igniting World War I as anything else.
The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, by Robert D. Kaplan, compares and contrasts nations and continents, pinpoints their respective resources, explains the advantage of abundant coastlines and seaports (the U.S.) vs. being largely land- or ice-locked (Russia), then puts all of that into motion from the earliest recorded history to modern times. The role of railways in maintaining domestic strength is frequently mentioned. In particular, China’s expansion of rail lines into neighboring countries, as well as its investment in railway construction into parts of the Middle East and Africa (where America is now in virtual retreat), are described as commercial wins for those regions, and certainly for China, but not without security and economic concerns for the U.S. and the rest of the West.
More important is how to reverse the USA’s retreat. In my original Brussels posting I suggested that wealthy Americans fund a real media permanent blitz giving moderate Muslems some opportunity to make their voices heard. Leading the show would be Imam Palazzi, Imam of Rome, and head of Italy’s Muslim community. A second element would be for some very wealthy U. S. A. group to take both Jordanian and Israeli railways off government hands and make a united and profitable system out of them. Well, I can dream can’t I?
Back in the 1960’s, there were a couple articles in Trains which advanced the thesis that the coming of the railway, its technology, organization, training, etc. did a lot to bring undeveloped countries into the 19th and 20th centuries and modern economies. I’m pretty sure one was in one of David P. Morgan’s “Jet Search for Steam” series; the other was in an article about the railways of India.
About $12 - though some comments are critical about the content. Apparently it does have good description and analysis of the use of railroads in the U.S. Civil War, and Herman Haupt’s 2 principles. From one comment (Les Feams, Oct. 28, 2013):
" . . . especially the US Civil War where railways first came into their own reflecting the influence of US Federal engineer, Herman Haupt, whose work for the United States Military Railroads in preparation for several battles, culminating at Gettysburg, would confirm the strategic role of the railways in warfare and who in effect produced the key guidelines for effective railway management and coordination with the military in time of war. Haupt’s two main principles were that the military should not interfere in the operation of the train service, and that freight cars should be emptied and returned promptly, so that they were not used as warehouses (or even, as happened, as offices)."
I’m in the process of reading Robert C Black III’s The Railroads of the Confederacy. A general theme of Black’s book is that the CSA typically violated both of Haupt’s principles to their detriment. To be fair, the men who were charged with “managing” the military use of railroads in the CSA were well aware of the principles, but had great dificulty due to the decentralized nature of the CSA.
Compounding this was the almost complete lack of industrial capability of the CSA to build and support railroads.
On a more modern note, communication appears to be the most important technology for modernizing society, witness the way cheap cell phone techno
The agreement that transferred two islands from Egypt to Saudi Arabia also included the plan to built a 22-mile bgridge across the Staits of Tiran, linking the two countries by road and rail. Just like the Chinese were the low bidders for the Israel rail line to Elat, I suspect the Chinese will be involved in this bridge as well.
And jusat like it would mjake mjuch more sense to have the existing rail line to Akkaba standard gauged and used by both Jordan and Israel, so it would make much more sense to built this rail linke trough Akkaba and Elat and Rhat, an all-land route.
very worthwhile economic insntive for peace, and so I can dream.