Bethlehem Steel - (Regional) by Kenneth Warren (Paperback)

About the Book

Bethlehem Steel presents an original and compelling history of a leading American company, examining the numerous factors contributing to the growth of this titan and those that eventually felled it--along with many of its competitors in the U.S. steel industry.

Book Synopsis

In the late 19th century, rails from Bethlehem Steel helped build the United States into the world's foremost economy. During the 1890s, Bethlehem became America's leading supplier of heavy armaments, and by 1914, it had pioneered new methods of structural steel manufacture that transformed urban skylines. Demand for its war materials during World War I provided the finance for Bethlehem to become the world's second-largest steel maker. As late as 1974, the company achieved record earnings of $342 million. But in the 1980s and 1990s, through wildly fluctuating times, losses outweighed gains, and Bethlehem struggled to downsize and reinvest in newer technologies. By 2001, in financial collapse, it reluctantly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Two years later, International Steel Group acquired the company for $1.5 billion.

In Bethlehem Steel, Kenneth Warren presents an original and compelling history of a leading American company, examining the numerous factors contributing to the growth of this titan and those that eventually felled it--along with many of its competitors in the U.S. steel industry.

Warren considers the investment failures, indecision and slowness to abandon or restructure outdated u201cintegratedu201d plants plaguing what had become an insular, inward-looking management group. Meanwhile competition increased from more economical u201cmini millsu201d at home and from new, technologically superior plants overseas, which drove world prices down, causing huge flows of imported steel into the United States.

Bethlehem Steel provides a fascinating case study in the transformation of a major industry from one of American dominance to one where America struggled to survive.

Review Quotes

"Bethlehem Steel is the definitive historical analysis of the late Bethlehem Steel Corporation. . . . this volume traces the origins, rise, decline, and eventual fall of one of this nation's iconic business organizations. . . . well written and superbly researched."-- "The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography"

[Warren's] research is impressive--students of industrial history will find Bethlehem Steel a revealing and timely work, defining challenges that all sorts of companies face today, across the U.S. and around the world.-- "The Wall Street Journal"

Kenneth Warren turns his great expertise and ability in the iron and steel industry to Bethlehem Steel with superb results. He presents a comprehensive, analytic narrative of this great firm from its beginnings to its inauspicious end. This business biography is an admirable companion to his earlier fine works on U.S. Steel and Charles M. Schwab.-- "John N. Ingham, author of Making Iron and Steel"

Kenneth Warren's Bethlehem Steel is a solid contribution to the scholarship on an important chapter in the nation's industrial history. Warren skillfully chronicles the rise of a business giant, then traces the many and complex forces, both internal and external, that led to its demise. This is a valuable work in an era of globalization, when American cities like Bethlehem struggle with the transformation away from their industrial past. This book will be of interest to anyone who studies twentieth-century economic and business history.-- "Katherine Carte Engel, Texas A&M University"

The corporate biography of this icon of US industrial history is worthy of examination by history and business students and scholars. Highly recommended.-- "Choice Magazine"

Warren has done a superb job of telling the saga of the rise and decline of one of Pennsylvania's major twentieth century corporations.-- "Commonwealth"

About the Author

Kenneth Warren is Emeritus Fellow of Jesus College, University of Oxford. He is the author of numerous books, including Big Steel: The First Century of the United States Steel Corporation 1901Ð2001; Wealth, Waste, and Alienation: Growth and Decline in the Connellsville Coke Industry; and Bethlehem Steel: Builder and Arsenal of America.