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History North America

Industrial Sunset

The Making of North America's Rust Belt, 1969-1984

by (author) Steven High

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Dec 2003
Category
North America, Urban, Economic Conditions
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802085283
    Publish Date
    Dec 2003
    List Price
    $54.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802037381
    Publish Date
    Jun 2003
    List Price
    $87.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442658523
    Publish Date
    Dec 2003
    List Price
    $41.95

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Description

Plant shutdowns in Canada and the United States from 1969 to 1984 led to an ongoing and ravaging industrial decline of the Great Lakes Region. Industrial Sunset offers a comparative regional analysis of the economic and cultural devastation caused by the shutdowns, and provides an insightful examination of how mill and factory workers on both sides of the border made sense of their own displacement. The history of deindustrialization rendered in cultural terms reveals the importance of community and national identifications in how North Americans responded to the problem.

Based on the plant shutdown stories told by over 130 industrial workers, and drawing on extensive archival and published sources, and songs and poetry from the time period covered, Steve High explores the central issues in the history and contemporary politics of plant closings. In so doing, this study poses new questions about group identification and solidarity in the face of often dramatic industrial transformation.

About the author

Steven High is a professor of history at Concordia University in Montreal where he co-founded the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling. He has authored a number of books and articles on structural and mass violence as well as deindustrialization as a political, socio-economic, and cultural process. He is currently the head of the transnational “Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time” (DEPOT) research project which brings together researchers, museum professionals, archivists, and trade unionists across Europe and North America.

Steven High's profile page

Awards

  • Short-listed, John Porter Memorial Book Prize, Canadian Sociology & Anthropology Association
  • Winner, Raymond Klibansky Prize
  • Winner, Albert B. Corey Prize, Canadian Historical Association and American Historical Association