Route 128 is a story of idealism and entrepreneurship, of ivory-tower intellectualism and practical Yankee ingenuity, of individual dreams and cooperative efforts--the search for new knowledge and the drive to put it to work. The book tells how a stretch of highway circling Boston became one of the nation's best-known centers of high-tech industrial innovation. No other region can match Boston's record of productivity and leadership in technology over the past two centuries. The fruitful interplay of industry, the federal government, and higher education in Massachusetts has produced new fields of research, novel inventions, spin-off companies, entire new industries, new academic disciplines, and innovative federal agencies like the National Science Foundation. What are the critical ingredients that produce such high creativity? What lessons are there for other states and nations interested in the fabled promise of high technology? The first book to address the importance of this area, Route 128 examines the forces that shaped the region and the role people and events there played in determining the course of the overall relationship among industry, academia, and government in our society. The book is as well a brilliant, incisive analysis of the conditions required to encourage innovation in other areas of the world. The authors highlight the roles of such "ultimate entrepreneurs" as Digital Equipment's Ken Olsen and of such academic impresarios as Vannevar Bush of MIT. The book also explains why the "Massachusetts Miracle" appeared to have crashed to earth by the end of the 1980s as the national and regional economies slid into recession and high-tech companies laid off thousands.

Like the Greeks who sailed with Jason in search of the Golden Fleece, the new Argonauts--foreign-born, technically skilled entrepreneurs who travel back and forth between Silicon Valley and their home countries--seek their fortune in distant lands by launching companies far from established centers of skill and technology. Their story illuminates profound transformations in the global economy. Economic geographer AnnaLee Saxenian has followed this transformation, exploring one of its great paradoxes: how the "brain drain" has become "brain circulation," a powerful economic force for development of formerly peripheral regions. The new Argonauts--armed with Silicon Valley experience and relationships and the ability to operate in two countries simultaneously--quickly identify market opportunities, locate foreign partners, and manage cross-border business operations. The New Argonauts extends Saxenian's pioneering research into the dynamics of competition in Silicon Valley. The book brings a fresh perspective to the way that technology entrepreneurs build regional advantage in order to compete in global markets. Scholars, policymakers, and business leaders will benefit from Saxenian's firsthand research into the investors and entrepreneurs who return home to start new companies while remaining tied to powerful economic and professional communities in the United States. For Americans accustomed to unchallenged economic domination, the fast-growing capabilities of China and India may seem threatening. But as Saxenian convincingly displays in this pathbreaking book, the Argonauts have made America richer, not poorer.

Route 128 traces its origins to the late 1920s, when the Massachusetts Department of Public Works cobbled together a makeshift network of existing roads through Boston's suburbs. Between 1947 and 1956, during a statewide push to build new highways, Route 128 was reconstructed as a major regional expressway. The new highway immediately fueled explosive growth in many of the region's once bucolic suburbs. What was once "the road to nowhere" quickly became a major commercial nexus for eastern Massachusetts and a critical link in the region's highway network. The visionary highway project vigorously promoted by William F. Callahan permanently altered the character of the two dozen towns through which it passed. Building Route 128 vividly documents the highway's construction and its impact on towns such as Waltham, Dedham, Lynnfield, and Gloucester. Drawing on previously unpublished images from the Massachusetts Department of Public Works and archives from many of the cities and towns affected, Building Route 128 tells the story of a region forever changed by the highway's construction.

From the invention of ether and the telephone in the nineteenth century to the birth of radar and the computer in the twentieth century, Greater Boston has been a hotbed for creating and nurturing new ideas. In the early years of the century, the ground was being sown for a new economy to supplant the slowly declining shoe and textile manufacturing industries that had long dominated the region. After World War II, Route 128, dubbed by critics "the road to nowhere," became the locus of this high-tech development. Although originally intended to ease gridlock and provide an avenue to recreational opportunities, by the late 1950s, Route 128 was dotted with industrial parks and new subdivisions. It was soon known as the Golden Crescent, in recognition of the prosperity it brought to the whole region. Route 128 and the Birth of the Age of High Tech tells the intertwining stories of the construction of the nation's first circumferential beltway and the burgeoning high-tech industries of Massachusetts, which helped spawn the modern age of personal computers, the Internet, and biotechnology.

Don't Blame Us traces the reorientation of modern liberalism and the Democratic Party away from their roots in labor union halls of northern cities to white-collar professionals in postindustrial high-tech suburbs, and casts new light on the importance of suburban liberalism in modern American political culture. Focusing on the suburbs along the high-tech corridor of Route 128 around Boston, Lily Geismer challenges conventional scholarly assessments of Massachusetts exceptionalism, the decline of liberalism, and suburban politics in the wake of the rise of the New Right and the Reagan Revolution in the 1970s and 1980s. Although only a small portion of the population, knowledge professionals in Massachusetts and elsewhere have come to wield tremendous political leverage and power. By probing the possibilities and limitations of these suburban liberals, this rich and nuanced account shows that—far from being an exception to national trends—the suburbs of Massachusetts offer a model for understanding national political realignment and suburban politics in the second half of the twentieth century.

Fifty years ago, the Central Artery snaked its way through Boston, destroying century-old neighborhoods and bustling commercial districts in the very heart of the city. Designed to open Boston's downtown to convenient car and truck access, the highway cut a two-mile-long gash through the nation's oldest and most historic city, destroying or casting a shadow over some of its most architecturally significant buildings. By the time the Central Artery was completed in 1959, many former supporters had already realized that it was a colossal mistake. Drawing on recently uncovered Massachusetts Department of Public Works archives and numerous other sources, Boston's Central Artery tells the story of the highway's construction and of the neighborhoods that it destroyed. The book is a vivid document of an era when roadways tore through the nation's downtown centers and displaced thousands of residents and businesses along the way. Written by an enginer-historian, Boston's Central Artery will appeal to not only those fascinated by the history of Boston but also those interested in urban history, architecture, and construction.

By 1950, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its capital city had fallen on hard times. With the region's railroads in decline and the roads in appalling disrepair, the difficulty of moving people and goods around the state and into its largest port was taking a heavy toll on the economy. The solution came in 1952 from one man and the road he devoted the last decade of his life to building. The man was William Callahan, and the road was the Massachusetts Turnpike. Building the Mass Pike tells the story of the road's planning, construction, and impact on the communities through which it passed. The book includes previously unpublished images from the Turnpike Authority archives and provides a vivid document of the largest public works project in the state's history and the firestorm of controversy that surrounded it. Written by an engineer-historian, Building the Mass Pike will appeal not only to those fascinated by the history of the Commonwealth and its capital but also to those with an interest in construction, urban history, and the politics of old Boston.