Trucking Country – The Road to America′s Wal–Mart Economy (Politics and Society in Modern America) - Hardcover

Hamilton, Shane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691135827 ISBN 13: 9780691135823

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2008

Synopsis

"Trucking Country" is a social history of long-haul trucking that explores the contentious politics of free-market capitalism in post-World War II America. Shane Hamilton paints an eye-opening portrait of the rural highways of the American heartland, and in doing so explains why working-class populist voters are drawn to conservative politicians who seemingly don't represent their financial interests. Hamilton challenges the popular notion of "red state" conservatism as a devil's bargain between culturally conservative rural workers and economically conservative demagogues in the Republican Party. The roots of rural conservatism, Hamilton demonstrates, took hold long before the culture wars and free-market fanaticism of the 1990s.As Hamilton shows, truckers helped build an economic order that brought low-priced consumer goods to a greater number of Americans. They piloted the big rigs that linked America's factory farms and agribusiness food processors to suburban supermarkets across the country. "Trucking Country" is the gripping account of truckers whose support of post-New Deal free enterprise was so virulent that it sparked violent highway blockades in the 1970s. It's the story of "bandit" drivers who inspired country songwriters and Hollywood filmmakers to celebrate the "last American cowboy," and of ordinary blue-collar workers who helped make possible the deregulatory policies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and set the stage for Wal-Mart to become America's most powerful corporation in today's low-price, low-wage economy.

About this title

About the Author

Shane Hamilton is assistant professor of history at the University of Georgia.

From the Back Cover

"Move over Tom Frank. Hamilton shows that what buried the New Deal was not the recent rise of cultural conservatism, but a longstanding and deep rejection of government intervention in the economy. One of the best history books ever written on the origins of neoliberalism."--Ted Steinberg, author of Down to Earth

"Shane Hamilton traces how an obscure loophole in transportation law helped reshape the rural economy--and, in the process, changed the way we eat. This is an imaginative, provocative piece of work."--Marc Levinson, author ofThe Box

"Well-written and tightly argued, Shane Hamilton's Trucking Country illuminates one of the twentieth century's most important transformations: the role of independent truckers, many of them former farmers, in seizing the delivery of agricultural products from railroads, revolutionizing food distribution, and, paradoxically, abetting the triumph of agribusiness."--Pete Daniel, National Museum of American History

"A startlingly original contribution. Shane Hamilton has crafted a truly fresh, unfamiliar, and enormously enlightening account of the decline of economic liberalism in postwar America. This is a brilliant book, one that should be read by anyone interested in exploring the intersection of politics, culture, and economics in modern America."--Joseph A. McCartin, author ofLabor's Great War

"Trucking Country is a highly innovative and strikingly unique piece of work. Hamilton approaches one of the most intensely studied historical topics of the current scholarly generation--the demise of New Deal liberalism--from an angle that virtually no other social, political, labor, or cultural historian has attempted. Hamilton has written a superb and persuasive book."--Nelson Lichtenstein, author ofState of the Union: A Century of American Labor

From the Inside Flap

"Move over Tom Frank. Hamilton shows that what buried the New Deal was not the recent rise of cultural conservatism, but a longstanding and deep rejection of government intervention in the economy. One of the best history books ever written on the origins of neoliberalism."--Ted Steinberg, author of Down to Earth

"Shane Hamilton traces how an obscure loophole in transportation law helped reshape the rural economy--and, in the process, changed the way we eat. This is an imaginative, provocative piece of work."--Marc Levinson, author of The Box

"Well-written and tightly argued, Shane Hamilton's Trucking Country illuminates one of the twentieth century's most important transformations: the role of independent truckers, many of them former farmers, in seizing the delivery of agricultural products from railroads, revolutionizing food distribution, and, paradoxically, abetting the triumph of agribusiness."--Pete Daniel, National Museum of American History

"A startlingly original contribution. Shane Hamilton has crafted a truly fresh, unfamiliar, and enormously enlightening account of the decline of economic liberalism in postwar America. This is a brilliant book, one that should be read by anyone interested in exploring the intersection of politics, culture, and economics in modern America."--Joseph A. McCartin, author of Labor's Great War

"Trucking Country is a highly innovative and strikingly unique piece of work. Hamilton approaches one of the most intensely studied historical topics of the current scholarly generation--the demise of New Deal liberalism--from an angle that virtually no other social, political, labor, or cultural historian has attempted. Hamilton has written a superb and persuasive book."--Nelson Lichtenstein, author of State of the Union: A Century of American Labor

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0691135827
• ISBN 13: 9780691135823
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 304