Warship Builders

Thomas Heinrich is professor of U.S. business and naval history at Baruch College, City University of New York. Born and raised in Germany, he received his PhD degree from the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of Ships for the Seven Seas: Philadelphia Shipbuilding in the Age of Industrial Capitalism and Kimberly-Clark and the Consumer Revolution in American Business.

Heinrich's clear explanations of how the major World War II naval powers designed and built their warships cast entirely new light on their differing naval performances and how their level of technological and industrial development affected their fates, with major implications for understanding not only the past but the future." - Capt. William D. O'Neil, USN (Ret.), Retired vice president, Center for Naval Analyses"Breaking fresh ground on the building of combat warships for the U.S. Navy during World War II and in preceding decades, this excellent book also corrects common misconceptions about the workings of the American war economy as a whole. The author provides insightful contrasts with wartime shipbuilding in Britain, Japan and Germany." - Evan Mawdsley, author of The War for the Seas: A Maritime History of World War II, and former Professor of International History at the University of Glasgow"An excellent examination of a crucial aspect of U.S. industrial mobilization. Heinrich revises our understanding of the diverse skills--technical, organizational, and managerial--required to manufacture complex weapons systems and demonstrates how the flexibility, creativity, and initiative of American shipbuilders was essential to victory in World War II." - Trent Hone, author of Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898-1945 and co-author of Battle Line: The United States Navy, 1919-1939"I've been waiting for a book like Warship Builders for a long time. It's an excellent and comparative study of warship construction in four navies by someone who understands the engineering and management processes of warship acquisition. Thomas Heinrich has written a book that will enlighten those readers unfamiliar with warship construction before and during World War Two and delight those readers who've studied warship design and perhaps have helped plan and build warships active today. Warship Builders is a classic." - Thomas C. Hone, former professor, U.S. Naval War College"Warship Builders is a brilliantly crafted and impeccably researched book that completely transforms the way in which we should think about the rise of American naval and industrial dominance in the Twentieth Century. Discarding superficial Fordist narratives of standardised mass production, Heinrich reveals the fascinating tale of how the U.S. warship industry managed the highly specialised and complex task of flexible batch production on a scale unparalleled anywhere else on earth. Warship Builders is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the U.S. Navy, U.S. mobilisation in World War II and the triumph of industrial America." - Joseph A. Maiolo, Professor of International History, King's College London, and author of Cry Havoc: How the Arms Race Drove the World to War 1931-1941