The Deindustrialization of America

Why it’s on the list: The 1982 book that named deindustrialization while it was happening — plant closings, capital flight and the hollowing of the industrial base, forty years before it became the consensus diagnosis.

Where I saw it: Posted by @aphysicist on X (September 18, 2025) as “weekend reading, this was written in 1982” — the date being the point.

Connections

• Deindustrialization — the phenomenon this book named.
• Manufacturing — the base whose dismantling it documents.
• Industrial Policy — the response it argued for.