I didn't read the book but listened to the econTalk episode with the author and read an article by the author with the same thesis. When I looked into it a bit I came away unconvinced. As much as I want to believe, I don't think he fully accounted for shifts in manufacturing.

I forget exactly what I found, but if I where to guess it would be something like our imports of certain resources might have peaked, but that doesn't account to things that are manufactured in part/whole outside the US. If I buy an inflatable Kayak made in China, then how is that oil/rubber accounted for? US oil/rubber imports maybe have gone down, but have our inflatable Kayak imports gone down and is it tracked?