• �Eamonn Fingleton is a bravely original-minded writer, whose challenges to the
prevailing wisdom of the time are based on detailed reporting and always worth
considering. His skeptical look at the software/Internet boom is important while
the boom is going on and will seem even more intriguing once it is over.� --
James Fallows, author of Breaking the News
• �From time to time, a book is published that alters national thought
about an otherwise settled topic. In Praise of Hard Industries is such
a book. In lucid prose, supported by solid facts, distinguished financial
analyst Eamonn Fingleton destroys the prevailing myths that nations should
abandon manufacturing for information service industries. Point by point,
Fingleton demonstrates why strengthening U.S. manufacturing, rather than the
current policy of abandoning it, is the key to America's long-term success. This
book is must reading for lawmakers and serious students of the U.S. economy's
future. � -- Roger Milliken, CEO of Milliken Inc.
• �At a Third World conference, Akio Morita admonished the emerging
countries that they first had to develop a strong manufacturing capability in
order to� become a nation state. Then he added 'That world power that loses its
� manufacturing base will cease to be a world power.' Eamonn Fingleton's
brilliant analysis, In Praise of Hard Industries, tells why.� --
Senator Ernest F. Hollings
• �In his new book about why manufacturing, not the information economy,
is the key to future prosperity, Eamonn Fingleton exposes so many hypes and
punctures so many myths that the few hypes and myths that he furthers can be
forgiven against the benefit of this powerful critique of the conventional party
line.� -- Ralph Nader, Washington, D.C.
• �In Praise of Hard Industries is a seminal work -- one that
policy makers will fiercely debate for many years. In this tightly written
critique, financial analyst Eamonn Fingleton convincingly demolishes the
fundamental assumption that undergirds current U.S. economic policy -- namely
that advanced economies should sacrifice their manufacturing base in favor of
information-based sectors. If the Fingleton view prevails in national debate,
shifts in U.S. economy policy are inevitable. � -- Pat Choate, author and
economist
• �It is close to impossible to get Americans today to understand that
an economy based on manufacturing and an economy based on finance are not
equivalent. Manufacturing provides jobs for the largest number of citizens;
finance is the non value-adding but crisis-provoking segment of modern society.
Japan is the world's leading manufacturing country; the United States is the
stronghold of finance capitalism. This is the best book on why that distinction
matters. It is indispensable reading for Americans who wonder what the world
will be like after Wall Street's bull market ends.� -- Chalmers Johnson, author
of MITI and the Japanese Miracle
• �Eamonn Fingleton's remarkable tour de force demolishes dangerous
myths--mainly that large economies like America's can flourish indefinitely
while down-sizing and exporting its vital manufacturing industries, and that
U.S. business is leading a 'post-industrial' world towards a bright,
non-industrial,all-digital future. This powerful book must make policy-makers
and managers think again, and should make them act decisively to meet a grave
challenge.�-- Robert Heller, author of The Fate of IBM
