This book is a tour-de-force review of American history from Ben Franklin to Abraham Lincoln. I am very much looking forward to Volume 2 which will cover Lincoln to JFK. Chaitkin is a master historian who has produced a highly readable book. I can’t put it down. Anyone interested in the real history of industrial development, both in the US and internationally, should read this book. What Ha-Joon Chang is to economics, Anton Chaitkin is to history, offering a vitally important “third way” in a profession dominated by the false dichotomy between British Free Trade and Marxism. The American System is that third way, both protectionist and industrial-capitalist. From the standpoint of history, not ideology, it is demonstrably the most effective method for bringing peace, prosperity and progress to humanity, and it needs a thousand more books like this singing its praises.