------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------
Published by EH.NET (February 2007)

Timothy J. Botti, _Envy of the World: A History of the U.S. Economy 
and Big Business_. New York: Algora Press, 2006. xxx + 701 pp. $36 
(paper), ISBN: 0-87586-431-7.

Reviewed for EH.NET by Howard Bodenhorn, Department of Economics, 
Yale University.


Timothy J. Botti, an independent scholar, holds a Ph.D. in the 
history of American foreign policy, but considers himself an expert 
on the history of empires, military and strategic history, and 
economic and business history. In the foreword to his book, Botti 
informs us that his aim is to provide the reader with an approachable 
narrative about how four centuries of individual and collective 
action generated a $12 trillion modern economic powerhouse that is 
the "envy of the world." In doing so, he traces the increase in 
business activity and economic output from the Jamestown arrival up 
to the present. Modern Americans, he correctly notes, are virtually 
awash in the cornucopia of goods and services provided by a 
post-industrial economy. It is the breadth and depth of U.S. material 
wealth that sets the country apart from most of the world.

Botti's fundamental question: "How did this come to pass?" is, of 
course, of fundamental importance and enduring interest to economic 
and business historians. It is a shame that the author fails to 
provide meaningful insights. What he provides, instead, is a mountain 
of information without much analysis. There is no theoretical 
structure underlying the narrative so that, at the end of the book, I 
was left wondering what I had learned. Botti's thick book is lacking 
in depth.

Botti arranges his material chronologically and, for expositional 
purposes, divides U.S. history into four epochs: Foundations 
(1607-1860); Business and Government Compete for Supremacy 
(1861-1945); Economic Possibilities (1946-1989); and Old versus New 
Economy (1990-2004). Every author is, of course, free to divide 
history into as many and as large or small segments as suits his or 
her purpose, but the fact that fourteen years of the "new economy" 
are covered in 215 pages versus the 95 pages devoted to the first 253 
years of the "ancient economy" is a nod to contemporary fascination 
with the ubiquity of the microprocessor and the so-called "dot-com" 
boom, while failing to appreciate legitimate doubts about the 
microprocessor's true transformative effect.[1]

My substantive complaint has little to do with the author's choice of 
chronological divisions or fascination with the new economy, but with 
his expositional style. The historian's task is to organize material 
in such a way as to make sense of the rush of past events. Without 
imposing some narrative structure, history becomes little more than a 
recitation of what one of my college history professors labeled "one 
damned thing after another." Rather than accept the historian's task, 
Botti reinforces the apparent randomness of events through his 
narrative structure. In the ten paragraphs devoted to consumer 
expenditures as a driver of the U.S. economy in the postwar 
(1946-1960) period, he tells us that political leaders did not want 
to swing back toward interwar protectionist policies; that pent-up 
consumer demand "brought greater prominence and profits to a raft of 
companies;" that, despite mounting evidence of the health risks 
associated with cigarettes, R. J. Reynolds' sales soared; that 
increased competition between the oligopolies squeezed out small 
producers; that Gillette introduced Foamy saving cream and Right 
Guard deodorant in aerosol form; that Kodak hit it big with the 
Brownie Starmatic camera; that wartime gasoline rationing nearly 
devastated the Howard Johnson restaurant chain; and that Aramark 
emerged as major vending machine-based retailer (pp. 292-95).

Each of these topics might serve as a springboard into a meaningful 
discussion of larger implications, such as the waxing and waning of 
corporate calls for protectionism, or oligopolistic practices, or 
massive investments in corporate R&D or the growing pressure on 
corporations to behave in socially responsible ways. But here, as 
throughout the volume, such opportunities go unexploited.

As a full-time economic historian I found the volume disappointing 
because it fails to demonstrate a grasp of, or even acknowledge, some 
of the most important contributions of thirty years of new economic 
history to our understanding of the American experience. It is 
troubling how few of these new interpretations have found their way 
into the historical discourse. It is particularly troubling in this 
instance that they haven't even found their way into a volume 
ostensibly describing the economic history of the United States.

As a part-time business historian I found the volume disappointing 
because, at its best, business history is by turns insightful and 
engaging, informative and entertaining, interesting and eclectic. 
Botti's volume exhibits few of these qualities.

As I read Botti's book, I kept wondering about his intended audience. 
The book is inappropriate as a primary, or even supplementary, reader 
in an economic or business history course, mostly because it lacks 
any substantive analysis, organizing theme or theoretical 
superstructure. Readers in search of source material in business 
history may find some of Botti's thumbnail sketches of firms and 
their founders of some value, but several business history 
encyclopedias better serve that purpose. Finally, it is unlikely to 
attract a popular audience because the narrative is not particularly 
engaging. I am therefore at a loss in identifying an appropriate 
audience.

Note:
1. Robert Gordon, "U.S. Economic Growth since 1870: One Big Wave," 
_American Economic Review_ 89:2 (May 1999), 123-28; Joel Mokyr, "Are 
We in the Middle of an Industrial Revolution," Federal Reserve Bank 
of Kansas City _Economic Review_ (1997); and Jeremy Greenwood and 
Mehmet Yorukoglu, "1974," _Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on 
Public Policy_ 46 (June 1997), 49-95 all cast doubt on whether the 
computer represents a fundamental technological change of the same 
magnitude of the technological breakthroughs of the late nineteenth 
century, such as electricity, the internal combustion engine, or 
plastics and pharmaceuticals.


Howard Bodenhorn, Visiting Professor of Economics at Yale University, 
is author of _A History of Banking in Antebellum America: Financial 
Markets and Economic Development in an Age of Nation Building_ 
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) and _State Banking in 
Early America: A New Economic History_ (New York: Oxford University 
Press, 2003). He is currently writing a history of free African 
Americans in the antebellum South.

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