Alternative Tracks: The Constitution of American Industrial Order, 1865-1917

A novel interpretation of industrialization and political development in the United States, focusing on the critical case of railroads.

Winner of the J. David Greenstone Prize from the American Political Science Association

Alternative Tracks provides a novel interpretation of industrialization and political development in the United States. Focusing on the critical case of railroads, Gerald Berk shows that alternative forms of economic organization and governmental regulation existed in the late nineteenth century. Constitutional choices, not technological imperatives or economic interests, determined the outcome in the twentieth century: a centralized industry regulated according to liberal principles of redistribution. Alternative Tracks reveals a nineteenth-century rival to this political economy--an equally efficient and more democratic system of regional railroads regulated according to republican principles.

Author: Gerald Berk
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 07/23/1997
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.81lbs
Size: 8.54h x 5.52w x 0.64d
ISBN: 9780801856365

About the Author

Gerald Berk is associate professor of political science at the University of Oregon.

This title is not returnable