Global Gambits Big Steel and the U.S. Quest for Manganese

Subjects:

• History » American Diplomatic History
• Economics » Economic History
• Political Science » International Relations

Reviews:

• In this well-researched study, the historian Tyler Priest gives us "for the first time" the story of manganese as a strategic global commodity and how its discovery, extraction, transport, and use relate to U.S. foreign relations and international political economy from the late nineteenth century through the twentieth.
  —The Journal of American History December 2006

• Endorsement From Walter LaFeber
  Tisch University Professor
  Cornell University: Dwight Eisenhower observed the United States might be better off if Fort Knox were filled with manganese rather than gold. Tyler Priest's pioneering work reveals why Eisenhower's remark explains crucial features of U.S. diplomacy and economic development during the twentieth-century--and Priest has done this by advancing a beautifully researched argument showing how leading U.S. corporations and Washington officials cooperated to shape American foreign relations towards India, Brazil, Africa, Russia, and other sources of this precious raw material.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• The "Starch in the Steel": Manganese Metallurgy and Commerce
• Far-Flung Sources: The Creation of a World Market, 1880-1914
• "More Than a Pawn in the Game of War": Global Instabilities, 1905-1919
• Filling Big Orders: The Diversification of Supply, 1919-1930
• Internationalism vs. Self-Sufficiency: The Making of U.S. Mineral Policy, 1919-1939
• Tempting the Brazilians: The Diplomacy of Minerals and Steel, 1930-1945
• Extending the Quest: The Crisis of the New Order, 1945-1949
• New Frontiers: Restructuring World Supply, 1948-1965
• Epilogue and Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Tables
• Maps