Rate this book

Freedom Forge How American Business Produced Victory In World War (2000)

by Arthur Herman(Favorite Author)

4.21 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

review 1: 5-Stars! ‘Freedom’s Forge’ – How American Business Produced Victory in WW IIThis is an excellent book and a must read for anyone interested in business history. It is the story of how US business ramped up from a dead start and produced all those tanks, airplanes, and ships that won WW II. It is the story of many people, but primarily Bill Knudsen, the assembly line expert and President of GM who Roosevelt called in 1940 to organize war production, and of Henry Kaiser, master builder and the father of the Victory and Liberty Ships and the west coast shipyards. It is the story of B-17s, B-29s, tanks, guns, Rosie the Riveter, and mobilization of the US car companies. It is also the story of how determined businessmen like Knudsen fought interference from government... more bureaucracies, Congress, labor unions, and even the white house to get the job done to supply not only the US, but Great Britain and Russia as well. By the end of the war, GM alone outproduced Germany, Japan and Italy put together, and we can see in hindsight that Yamamato was right, they had awakened a 'sleeping giant' and never stood a chance.
review 2: War histories usually focus on battles and strategies, generals and admirals, presidents and privates. Occasionally there is mention of the Age of Total War, of the American superiority of resources that overwhelmed Germany and Japan, but where do all of those materials come from? As “Freedom’s Forge” explains, it was American industry nurtured by its free enterprise system that supplied the tools that the soldiers and sailors needed to do the job.The two businessmen who are at the center of this book are Bill Knudsen, a Danish immigrant engineer who had advanced to the presidency of General Motors and Henry J. Kaiser, the industrial gadfly whose serial businesses included the amazing Liberty Ships that served as the workhorses of the War. Knudsen was the businessman in the New Deal, the production expert who forced the military to describe their needs and then guided industry into producing them. It was he who educated the government official who had built their careers on skepticism of business of the need to let industry do its job without interference that would disrupt its methods. It was he who knew that complicated processes should be contracted to large companies with strong engineering departments, while spreading the small, simple tasks to small business, even Mom and Pops working out of their garages. Kaiser was the road builder and housing contractor experienced in dealing with government contracts and who knew no unconquerable challenge and is best remembered for the cheap, quickly manufactured Liberty Ships, but who also built aircraft carriers and aircraft to government specifications.In addition to those icons there were many others who played their roles in converting industry from civilian to military production. Names remembered for their companies: Grumman, McDonnell and Ford and the Rosie The Riveters who left their homes to replace men in the expanding factories. A few are mentioned for their names, including parachute packer, Norma Jeanne Mortenson who became Marilyn Monroe and Georgia factory worker, Helen Longstreet, widow of Gen. James Longstreet.Author Arthur Herman has done an excellent job of uncovering a story of those crucial figures who contributed so much to victory, but who are generally forgotten. Lacking the glamour of combat and running counter to histories written by leftist scholars, theirs is a story rarely told. In “Freedom’s Forge” they have their day and each reader gains an appreciation of the businesses behind the conquerors. less

Download links for: Freedom Forge How American Business Produced Victory in World War

Advertising