Making Steel

Wisconsin Bookwatch, July, 2005

Making Steel

Mark Reutter

University of Illinois Press

1325 South Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820-6975

www.press.uillinois.edu

0252072332 $21.95 1-800-545-4703

Reporter and business and law editor Mark Reutter presents Making Steel: Sparrows Point And The Rise And Ruin Of American Industrial Might, a historical chronicle of the rise and fall of American steel industry that especially focuses upon what was once the world's largest steel mill at Sparrows Point, Maryland. Scrutinizing the business of steel, its production, daily lives of the workers, and the fallout as coporate leaders elected to enhance their own security and wealth at the expense of employees, community, or innovative technology. A poignant true tale, brought back in a new edition featuring an author's preface, 26 pages of black-and-white photographs, and a telling chapter on Bethlehem Steel's bankruptcy titled "The Discarded American Worker", Making Steel is enthusiastically recommended to economics students and professionals, historians, and lay readers alike.