Making and selling cars : innovation and change in the U.S. automotive industry / James M. Rubenstein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rubenstein, James M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Automobile industry and trade--United States.

Automobile industry and trade.

United States.

Physical Description:

ix, 401 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Summary:

From the creation of fast food, to the design of cities, to the character of our landscape, the automobile has shaped nearly every aspect of modern American life. In fact the U.S. motor vehicle industry is the largest manufacturing industry in the world.

James M. Rubenstein documents the story of the automotive industry, which, despite its power, is an industry constantly struggling to redefine itself and assure its success. Making and Selling Cars: Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry shows how this industry made adjustments and fostered innovations in both production and marketing in order to remain a viable force throughout the twentieth century.

Rubenstein builds his study of the American auto industry with care, taking the reader through this quintessentially modern history of production and consumption. Avoiding jargon while never oversimplifying, Rubenstein gives a detailed account of both the production and the merchandising of cars. We learn how the industry began, how it developed its methods for building cars, and how it created a market for them. Along the way there were many missteps and challenges -- the Edsel, the fuel crisis of the 1970s, the ascendancy of Japanese cars in the 1980s which the industry met with new techniques and approaches. In contrasting pairs of chapters, Rubenstein shows how the auto industry has reinvented itself and explains why the U.S. automotive industry has been and remains a vigorous shaper of the American economy.

Contents:

Part I Making Motor Vehicles

1 From Fordist Production 3

2 ... To Lean Production 30

3 From Making Parts 56

4 ... To Buying Parts 88

5 From Deskilling the Work Force 119

6 ... To Reskilling Labor 151

Part II Selling Motor Vehicles

7 From a Class-based Market 183

8 ... To a Personal Market 217

9 From Dealing with Customers 251

10 ... To Serving Customers 278

11 From a National Market 307

12 ... To a Global Market 331.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-386) and index.

ISBN:

0801867142

OCLC:

45363266