Description
Book SynopsisThis book focuses on the role of government in organizing the nation's transportation industries. As the authors show, over the course of the twentieth century transportation in the United States was as much a product of hard-fought politics, lobbying, and litigation as it was a naturally evolving system of engineering and available technology.
Trade Review"The authors have ambitiously tackled a massive topic and have succeeded in showing the complexities of regulatory policies over an extended period, grasping the 'big picture.'. . . This type of study is long overdue, filling a void in the literature of American transportation history." * Roger Grant,
Enterprise and Society *
"This important book argues persuasively that it was history and politics, not markets and competition, that determined public policy toward transportation from 1920 to 1980. Skillfully pulling together the histories of the various modes of transportation, the book makes the case that politics was more significant even than technical expertise-invariably, the work of experts was bested by politics." * William H. Becker, George Washington University *
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction
Ch.1. Seeking a new regulatory regime in transportation: railroad consolidation in the 1920s
Ch. 2. The new transportation problem: the politics of transportation coordination, 1925-1940
Ch. 3. Constructing commercial aviation, 1944-1973
Ch. 4. Run-up to deregulation: surface transportation, 1949-1970
Ch. 5. Transportation in a "Presidential Nation"
Ch. 6. Richard M. Nixon and planning for deregulation, 1970-1974
Ch. 7. Gerald R. Ford and presidential deregulation, 1974-1977
Ch. 8. Jimmy Carter and deregulation of the "best transportation system in the world," 1977-1980
Ch. 9. The American state and transportation
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
