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The Dawn of Innovation: The First American Industrial Revolution By Charles R. Morris Public Affairs, 2012 368 pages, $28.99
IN AN UNUSUALLY DESCRIPTIVE Introduction, Charles R. Morris labels The Dawn of Innovation an intentional prelude to his 2005 book The Tycoons. That effort followed Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller as they helped make the United States the world's number one economic power after the Civil War. This book explores the earlier work of men who laid the foundations of that economic system that eventually overtook all others. Two concluding chapters serve as an epilogue and prologue as they summarize some post-Civil War accomplishments and ask whether China is positioned to overtake the US as the US once overtook Great Britain. These unnecessary but harmless detours do nothing to mar the author's compelling account of some familiar and unfamiliar aspects of America's economic past.