The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
The Princeton Economic History of the Western World • Book 70
by Robert J. Gordon
Why You'll Love This
Gordon argues that the greatest century of human progress already happened — and we'll never see anything like it again.
- Great if you want: deep economic history grounded in vivid everyday-life detail
- The experience: dense and slow-burning — rewards patient, curious readers
- The writing: Gordon anchors big arguments in specifics: kerosene smells, muddy roads, icebox deliveries
- Skip if: you want a quick read — 784 pages of data and argument demand commitment
About This Book
Between 1870 and 1970, Americans went from kerosene lamps and outhouses to interstate highways and moon landings — a compression of transformation so radical that nothing before or since comes close. Robert J. Gordon's central argument is both exhilarating and sobering: that century of growth was a singular event, not a baseline we can expect to continue. As artificial intelligence and tech optimism dominate headlines, Gordon forces a harder question — what if the best is already behind us?
What sets this book apart is Gordon's insistence on making economic history feel lived-in. He anchors sweeping data in the texture of daily life — what a 1900 farmhouse smelled like, how electrification reshaped the kitchen, why the automobile didn't just change travel but restructured the entire American landscape. The result is a 784-page book that reads with genuine momentum, balancing rigorous quantitative analysis against vivid historical detail. Readers who appreciate big-idea nonfiction written with patience and intellectual honesty will find Gordon's careful, cumulative argument far more persuasive — and more unsettling — than a shorter book could ever manage.