How the War Was Won

Re:How the War Was Won by throw0101c on Monday November 14, 2022 @09:43PM (#33604585)

For some of the details on how production was organized and ramped up, see Freedom's forge: how American business produced victory in World War II by Arthur Herman:

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13152691-freedom-s-forge

It focuses on the efforts of two individuals:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Knudsen

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_J._Kaiser

Note that the books publication was sponsored/supported by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a very right-leaning, pro-business think tank: anytime the word 'union' comes up you can sense the author doing a *hock* *spit*.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How the War Was Won by dragon-hn on Monday November 14, 2022 @10:30PM (#33604904)

I enjoyed this book, but the slant against unions was pretty off putting.

I had no idea it was from AEI!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How the War Was Won by throw0101c on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @07:12AM (#33608184)

> I had no idea it was from AEI!

"From" may be a bit strong: in the acknowledgements the authors mentions that the AEI gave him a grant so that he could afford to spend the time doing research. The author is/was also a fellow at:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Institute

This doesn't invalidate the outline of events that the book goes over, it just means that anything shown in a positive light may have been "too/more positive" and anything shown in a negative light could have been "too/more negative". Everyone has their biases.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How the War Was Won by neural_thing on Tuesday November 15, 2022 @09:20AM (#33609443)

That book tells some good stories and raises industrialist animal spirits, but IDK if it's the most objective book out there. Wrote a review of it here https://sergey.substack.com/p/forging-a-narrative

[ Parent | on HN ]