English: Main locations of the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom Français : Principaux théâtres d'opérations de la Guerre de 1812 entre les États-Unis et le Royaume-Uni. Español: Principales teatros de operaciones de la Guerra de 1812 entre los Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Charles Morris' The Dawn of Innovation chronicles the first industrial revolution in the United States. In the first decades of the 19th century, America went from a largely rural economy, with little internal transportation infrastructure, to an industrial powerhouse. Morris details three uniquely American innovations--universal male suffrage, the shift of political power from the elites to the middle classes and the move to mechanized mass production--that resulted in the world's first democratic, middle class, mass consumption society.
He starts his narrative in an unusual place--the Great Lake at the brink of the War of 1812. America and England are locked in a battle of oneupmanship, seeing who can build the biggest and most powerful fleet of ships to control the lakes. The wierd thisng is that the navies rarlely battle, due to a combination of weather, unfair advantage and conservative commanders. But the shipbuilding boom does set the stage for many innovations, including mass production of warships, that served as a precurser for industry changes that set the stage for the revolution.
Morris crosses a wide range of industries in his journey--the role of steam engines in the mill waterworks in Lowell, Massachusetts, the global markets won by American gun makers, like Samuel Colt, building western steamboats to open midwest agriculture to new markets and mass produced clocks by Henry Shreve, which quickly took over the English market due to low cost and high reliability.
Publisher's Weekly summarizes his primary lessons well: “Morris's analysis shines brightest in the final chapter as he compares the United State's past economic growth with the current hyper-expansion of China. Only then, by examining the hurdles China faces in its ascendance to economic superpower, does Morris show how truly innovative the transformation of America was and why it will be impossible to repeat in the future.”
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