Arthur Herman

In World War II, the Allies buried the Axis under a torrent of technological products. This is the story of that production miracle, as seen through the biographies of two key leaders. Bill Knudsen was a Danish immigrant who at General Motors pioneered flexible mass production and annual models of automobiles. Henry Kaiser was an entrepreneur who made his fortune on the West Coast, first building roads and then leading mega-scale projects like the Hoover and Grand Coulee Dams.

In 1940, show more America was one of the most productive countries in the world, but industry had been hit hard by the Great Depression, and almost none of that capacity was geared towards military ends. The Army was without tanks, the Air Force was third tier at best, and while the Navy had capital ships, it was deficient in escorts and transports. In the last war, American soldiers had fought with French and British equipment. While Wilson had ordered a mass mobilization, production hang-ups and logistical snafus meant that very little of what was ordered ever saw a battlefield. If that happened again, there would be no way to defeat the Axis.

Knudsen was appointed Chairman of the Office of Production Management, and in the time between the invasion of Poland and Pearl Harbor, when American involvement in the war was distinctly unpopular, began the tricky work of converting commercial production over to military use. Knudsen used his immense standing in industry and his detailed knowledge of production to begin producing machine tools and setting up new factories. From fitful beginnings, Knudsen unleashed an avalanche of material: hundreds of thousands of tanks and aircraft, along with billions of shells and all the other necessary components of war.

Kaiser turned his mega-project style to building transports, churning out hundreds of Liberty cargo ships, along with oilers and escort carriers. Applying mass production to ships cut the build time down from 200 days to 25 at full swing. As part of a contest, one yard turned out a complete ship in 4 days! But Kaiser's publicity seeking style made him enemies, including Bill Knudsen. And when Liberty ships began cracking up, Kaiser's reputation took the blame, even though the fault was a combination of design and steel quality, rather than manufacturing defects.

Herman is a conservative intellectual, with longtime associations with the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson Institute, and this book is a paean to big business. Celebrating industry is a fair frame, but Herman can't help himself from taking swipes at FDR, the New Deal, or organized labor whenever he can. My politics are basically entirely opposed to Herman's, but the story that he tells is engaging enough that I can give his obligatory right wing gruntings a pass. Wages of Destruction is worth reading, but Freedom's Forge is fun reading. It's just important to keep in mind that contrary to Herman's great man focused vision, the American people paid for the war, where the big contractors got a cost+8% contract and useful capital installations afterwards; workers milled, stamped, riveted, and welded the ships, planes, tanks, and guns; and ultimately an army of citizen-soldiers used these weapons to win the war. show less

Wow, this is a book that someone has probably already used the word "magisterial" to describe; and it deserves it. This is a
This definitely goes in the 're-read' stack.

I was actually quite surprised to find out that Dr. Herman is a fellow at the Hudson Institute (look it up if you don't know), and this kind of leapt out in the last chapter. There are some conclusions drawn there that strike me as... dubious. (E.g. that the reason WWII ended the depression was because of pent of show more dynamism/productivity just waiting to be unleashed, and that post-New Deal government intervention had little or nothing to do with this, seemingly ignoring the glaring fact that government spending on the war effort was the biggest intervention of all; fan or not of such government activity, it seems a jarring misapprehension.)

That said, I learned a lot from the book, it has lead me to already buy several books referenced (Discourses, Nicomachean Ethics, etc.) and to put several more on my to-read list (I might actually get around to reading Road to Serfdom now.)


Also, there were a few garbled translations of physics (I forget exactly what... something re: elections) and the description of the formula for entropy (W is the number of states, not the probability of states. And it should be a lower-case k.) You, potential reader, will not suffer any loss from this; I care because physics is my area :) show less

As someone who has always been fascinated by history, “The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots’ Invention of the Modern World” by Arthur Herman was an absolute delight to read. Herman masterfully weaves together the stories of Scotland’s greatest minds, from Adam Smith to David Hume, showcasing how their revolutionary ideas shaped the modern world.

What truly captivated me was Herman’s ability to make complex philosophical and economic concepts accessible and engaging. His writing is show more both scholarly and approachable, making it easy to understand how the Scottish Enlightenment laid the groundwork for many aspects of contemporary society.

The book is a treasure trove of insights, revealing how a small nation with a tumultuous history managed to produce such a remarkable intellectual legacy. It’s inspiring to see how the Scots’ emphasis on education, critical thinking, and innovation led to advancements that still resonate today.

In short, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in history, philosophy, or the origins of modern thought. It’s a brilliant reminder of the power of ideas and the enduring impact of a few determined individuals. I couldn’t recommend it more highly show less

A refreshingly unsentimental exploration of Scottish history (for all the hyperbole conveyed in the title). It's a little too enamored of Adam Smith and capitalism, and a little too forgiving of British imperialism, but conveys the progression of Scottish society through the 18th and 19th centuries.