Unfinished Business: The Railroad in American Life by Maury Klein

From the Publisher

"Sooner or later every age finds a symbol which best expresses the essence of its character to later generations," writes Maury Klein, who has spent nearly three decades tracing the evolution and impact of the American railroad industry. "The coming of the railroad swept all rival forms of land transportation from its path . . . Within half a century, the rail system became the lifeline of an industrial society, a network of steel tentacles pushing into every corner of the Republic." Unfinished Business combines Klein's most influential articles with new essays to tell the story of America's developing railroad industry and the men who dominated it.

BookList

Klein is regarded as one of this nation's most eminent railroad historians. This book is a collection of earlier scholarly articles and popular pieces but also includes a new essay on the importance of railroad history in understanding American life. While some of Klein's work will appeal to railroad nostalgia buffs, his primary concern is with the impact of the railroad on American business and social development. Recent recognition of the significance of this impact came with the awarding of the 1993 Nobel Prize in economics to Robert Vogel, in part because of his econometric analyses of the late-nineteenth-century railroad industry. Klein provides a fascinating complement to Vogel's more esoteric approach.

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents