The rise and fall of American growth the U.S. standard of living since the Civil War
"In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With med...
| Main Author: | Gordon, Robert J. 1940- (Author) |
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Princeton :
Princeton University Press,
[2016]
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| Series: |
Princeton economic history of the Western world.
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| Subjects: |
Table of Contents:
- Introduction: The ascent and descent of growth
- Part I. 1870-1940 : the great inventions create a revolution inside and outside the home. The starting point : life and work in 1870 ; What they ate and wore and where they bought it ; The American home : from dark and isolated to bright and networked ; Motors overtake horses and rail : inventions and incremental improvements ; From telegraph to talkies : information, communication, and entertainment ; Nasty, brutish, and short : illness and early death ; Working conditions on the job and at home ; Taking and mitigating risks : consumer credit, insurance, and the government
- Entr'acte: The midcentury shift from revolution to evolution
- Part II: 1940-2015 : the Golden Age and the early warnings of slower growth. Fast food, synthetic fibers, and split-level subdivisions : the slowing transformation of food, clothing, and housing ; See the USA in your Chevrolet or from a plane flying high above ; Entertainment and communications from Milton Berle to the iPhone ; Computers and the internet from the mainframe to Facebook ; Antibiotics, CT scans, and the evolution of health and medicine ; Work, youth, and retirement at home and on the job
- Entr'acte: Toward an understanding of slower growth
- Part III: The sources of faster and slower growth. The great leap forward from the 1920s to the 1950s : what set of miracles created it? ; Innovation : can the future match the great inventions of the past? ; Inequality and the other headwinds : long-run American economic growth slows to a crawl
- Postscript: America's growth achievement and the path ahead.