The American Way

"The geography of contemporary U.S. political economy - the relocation of firms toward the Sunbelt and abroad; the decline of manufacturing in the Rust Belt; the rise of footloose producer services; NAFTA-inspired trade flows - has roots that run deep into our past. This innovative history by one of our most distinguished historical geographers traces these changes back to the seventeenth-century origins of liberalism, republicanism, and the regular financial crises by then endemic in capitalist societies. The English, and later the Americans, faced the problem of overcoming these crises while avoiding the political extremes of royal absolutism and later of socialism, communism, and fascism."--BOOK JACKET.