Making and Selling Cars: Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry by James M. Rubenstein (review)

Book Reviews131 even say "Michigan" takes on added meaning. John Sinclair, drugs, and antiwar protests signaled the collapse of society to Hayes. The University ofMichigan became the embodiment of everything he was against. Bo lived only for football and often seemed completely disengaged from the chaotic conditions around him. Even the student body's decision to convert a halftime homecoming celebration into an antiwar rally did not faze him. Bo wanted to beat Ohio State simply because theywere the perennial obstacle keeping Michigan from the Rose Bowl. As Rosenberg notes, "Bo Schembechler was one of the guys,Woody Hayes was never one of the guys" (p. 83). Rosenberg's novel prism creates bright new windows into the familiar story of Bo andWoody. His social-history approach makes for riveting reading. And forMichigan fans addled by Ohio State's recent dominance on the field, the book might serve as a reminder that the rivalrywas once very different. It might also remind them just how differentAmerica once was aswell. Scott Beekman University of Rio Grande James M. Rubenstein. Making and SellingCars: Innovationand Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Pp. 401. Bibliography. Drawings. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Paperback reissue, $35.00. That symbol of twentieth-century technology, the automobile, usually warrants a subsection in historical surveys or college courses, yet rarely is automotive history treated as a category unto itself. Instead, the history of the automobile is subdivided into specialties. Even largerworks on the subject tend toward the narrow, and holistic approaches to automotive history are generally presented as encyclopedias. Making and Selling Cars is that rare work thatmanages to create a coherent general review of the automobile. To some extent, Rubenstein's book resembles the pioneering works from the 1960s that first created "automotive history." Unlike other broad assessments, however, the author avoids chronologies and narratives. Although the book is limited primarily to theAmerican market, Making and Selling Cars achieves a larger view while presenting important details to support it. 132 MichiganHistoricalReview In exploring how automobiles are made and sold, Rubenstein addresses in one volume many of the great questions of automotive history that even more specialized studies often fail to discuss. For Rubenstein, Henry Ford's storymatters not because his innovations came first, but because they had such a broad, long-term influence. With excellent use of Ford-era primary sources, Rubenstein places the common stories of Ford and Highland Park into the fuller history of making and selling cars across the entire first century of the automobile's existence. The author's insight is achieved partially because he takes the geographer's view, tracking conditions and connections, not just actors and events. Even the most knowledgeable reader will benefit from Rubenstein's conjoining of perspectives in his exploration of both "making and selling" cars. Exploring how cars are "made" broadens the history beyond themajor industry players and emphasizes all of an automobile's parts and the complexities of joining them, including labor. And seeking to explain how cars are "sold" provides insight into the broader areas of distribution, marketing, advertising, consumerism, and the laws governing these processes. My quibbles are minimal. Although Rubenstein avoids social commentary, chapter endings tend toward unnecessary characterizations that while brief, are inconsistent with the author's larger approach. And Rubenstein treats politics rather flady, thereby missing some important influences upon industry and consumer choices and actions. Finally, since this book was first published in 2001 and intended as a millennial statement about the automobile, the first decade of the twenty-first century certainly has brought more than a few answers to questions raised by Rubenstein, and proven a few of his conclusions to be wrong. Nevertheless, the reissuing of this valuable book offers the reader of 2009 a fascinating opportunity to test the author's model. Rubenstein effectively compresses the first century of the automobile, seeing it as more alike than different. He leaves the reader with themajor questions testing the industry, seeing it as being at a crossroads where changes in direction are inevitable. The book offers a brilliant summation, and one hopes thatRubenstein may add, one day, a second volume on the automobile's first decade of...