Stephen High

Stephen High, Industrial Sunset: The Making of North Americas Rust Belt, 1969-1984 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003).
Steven Highs imaginative comparison of the distinctive impact of deindustrialization in the Midwestern region of the United States and southern Ontario during the early post-industrial era is a compelling and readable book. His rich oral testimony supplements an extensive secondary literature and a broad public debate on both sides of the border to grapple in a comparative fashion with worker and community reactions to plant closures during the 1970s and early 1980s. Industrial Sunset takes a theme central to Canadian/American relations (the mobility of capital and labour across international boundaries) and breathes new life into it. By situating worker reactions on both sides of the border to downsizing in the context of public discourse on the role of governments and capital in moderating the impact of industrial restructuring, it extends a public debate that has become even more intense in the post Free Trade Agreement era.
(awarded at CHA annual Meeting, University of Manitoba)