Traces the tradition of consumer protest and examines the early history of Consumers Union, which started as a working-class-oriented movement and soon evolved into the guiding light of an educated consumer elite. Silber argues that in choosing scientific testing as a means of consumer reform, the Consumers Union changed itself and the consumer movement more than it did American society. He uses three case studies -- reform of automative design, discouragement of smoking, and prevention of the contamination of food by radioactive fallout -- to demonstrate the use of scientific testing in social reform.

This book on case study of the Federal Trade Commission appropriations crisis of 1980 is intended to provide historical understanding of the network relationships between the public and private sectors in the United States during our modern period.

How America's high standard of living came to be and why future growth is under threat In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, and television transformed households and workplaces. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end? Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth challenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated. Gordon contends that the nation's productivity growth will be further held back by the headwinds of rising inequality, stagnating education, an aging population, and the rising debt of college students and the federal government, and that we must find new solutions. A critical voice in the most pressing debates of our time, The Rise and Fall of American Growth is at once a tribute to a century of radical change and a harbinger of tougher times to come.