By Harry N. Scheiber
Foreword by Lawrence M. Friedman
“Ohio Canal Era is a classic that ought to be read in every generation. It’s wonderful to have it back in print.”
Charles W. McCurdy, University of Virginia
“The classic study of canal development in the Old Northwest.”
William Cronon, author of Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
“A monumental and still definitive study of law and the economy in an American state.”
Lawrence M. Friedman, Stanford Law School
“This is a thoughtful, impressively well-informed, and perceptive study. It presents a careful, balanced, judicious, and non-doctrinaire analysis and discussion of the numerous elements in the economic growth and change in Ohio. It will be welcomed by all students of nineteenth-century United States history, and it ought to be required reading for economists and others who talk glibly about economic development as if it were a simple process.”
Vernon Carstensen, Pacific Northwest Quarterly
Ohio Canal Era, a rich analysis of state policies and their impact in directing economic change, is a classic on the subject of the pre–Civil War transportation revolution. This edition contains a new foreword by scholar Lawrence M. Friedman, Professor of Law, Stanford Law School, and a bibliographic note by the author.
Professor Scheiber explores how Ohio—as a “public enterprise state,” creating state agencies and mobilizing public resources for transport innovation and control—led in the process of economic change before the Civil War. No other historical account of the period provides so full and insightful a portrayal of “law in action.” Scheiber reveals the important roles of American nineteenth-century government in economic policy-making, finance, administration, and entrepreneurial activities in support of economic development.
His study is equally important as an economic history. Scheiber provides a full account of waves of technological innovation and of the transformation of Ohio’s commerce, agriculture, and industrialization in an era of hectic economic change. And he tells the intriguing story of how the earliest railroads of the Old Northwest were built and financed, finally confronting the state-owned canal system with a devastating competitive challenge.
Amid the current debate surrounding “privatization,” “deregulation,” and the appropriate use of “industrial policy” by government to shape and channel the economy. Scheiber’s landmark study gives vital historical context to issues of privatization and deregulation that we confront in new forms today.
Harry N. Scheiber is the Riesenfeld Chair Professor of Law and History in the School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. Among his previous publications are The State and Freedom of Contract; Inter-Allied Conflicts and the Origins of Modern Ocean Law; American Law and the Constitutional Order; and some 150 articles in journals of history, law, economics, and political science. More info →
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Paperback
978-0-8214-1979-3
Retail price: $34.95,
S.
Release date: January 2012
460 pages
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5½ × 8½ in.
Rights: World
Electronic
978-0-8214-4403-0
Release date: February 2012
Rights: World
Gibbons v. Ogden, Law, and Society in the Early Republic
By Thomas H. Cox
Gibbons v. Ogden, Law, and Society in the Early Republic examines a landmark decision in American jurisprudence, the first Supreme Court case to deal with the thorny legal issue of interstate commerce.Decided in 1824, Gibbons v. Ogden arose out of litigation between owners of rival steamboat lines over passenger and freight routes between the neighboring states of New York and New Jersey.
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Transportation in the Buckeye State
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Few American states can match the rich and diverse transportation heritage of Ohio. Every major form of public conveyance eventually served the Buckeye state. From the “Canal Age” to the “Interurban Era,” Ohio emerged as a national leader. The state’s central location, abundant natural resources, impressive wealth, shrewd business leadership, and episodes of good fortune explain the dynamic nature of its transport past.Ohio
Business and Economics · History · American History · Transportation History · Ohio and Regional
The World beyond the Windshield
Roads and Landscapes in the United States and Europe
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For better or worse, the view through a car’s windshield has redefined how we see the world around us. In some cases, such as the American parkway, the view from the road was the be-all and end-all of the highway; in others, such as the Italian autostrada, the view of a fast, efficient transportation machine celebrating either Fascism or its absence was the goal.
History | Historical Geography · History | Modern | 20th Century · Environmental Policy · United States · United Kingdom · Italy · Germany
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