Customer Reviews

Making and Selling Cars: Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The author is a professor of geography who is an expert on the location and operation of domestic auto assembly and component manufacturing plants. In this book he tries to parley that limited knowledge into a history of the U.S. auto industry and fails miserably. This would be a difficult task for a competent historian and is clearly a fool's errand for a geographer.

The organization of this book is islands of information surrounded by a sea of ignorance. The islands are based on the author's previous research, a limited list of books, and articles from Automotive News. He leans heavily on The Machine that Changed the World by James Womack and an obscure book from 1914 by Parlin and Younker. The surrounding sea is the numerous aspects of the industry's history that the author ignores or mangles.

The book does provide an interesting analysis of how the domestic auto manufacturers moved away from their traditional class based marketing strategy when they introduced compact versions of their mid-priced brands in the early 1960's.

A key lesson from this book is "Don't judge a book by its publisher". Johns Hopkins University Press has published some excellent books on automotive topics. This is not one of them.

I bought this book for research on marketing in the US automotive industry. Excellent resource. Complete coverage of the entire industry from its inception.

I really enjoyed how thorough the book was, and learned a great deal. The author takes nothing for granted and really wants to educate the reader in simple to understand language. Some sections I found myself skimming because the information seemed too basic, but in all an excellent and comprehensive review of the U.S. auto industry.

Good quality. Fast speed! (ordered on Thur. and seller shipped it on Fri., finally got it on the next Monday, never received an item this fast ordering on Amazon. really appreciate)