
America's Assembly Line
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Kevin Moriarty
-
By:
-
David E Nye
About this listen
The mechanized assembly line was invented in 1913 and has been in continuous operation ever since. It is the most familiar form of mass production. Both praised as a boon to workers and condemned for exploiting them, it has been celebrated and satirized. (We can still picture Chaplin's little tramp trying to keep up with a factory conveyor belt.) In America's Assembly Line, David Nye examines the industrial innovation that made the United States productive and wealthy in the twentieth century.
The assembly line developed at the Ford Motor Company in 1913 for the mass production of Model Ts - first created and then serving an expanding mass market. It also transformed industrial labor. By 1980, Japan had reinvented the assembly line as a system of "lean manufacturing." American industry reluctantly adopted the new approach. Nye describes this evolution and the new global landscape of increasingly automated factories, with fewer industrial jobs in America and questionable working conditions in developing countries. A century after Ford's pioneering innovation, the assembly line continues to evolve toward more sustainable manufacturing.
©2013 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (P)2017 Redwood AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
How to Grow Your Small Business
- A 6-Step Plan to Help Your Business Take Off
- By: Donald Miller
- Narrated by: Donald Miller
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Using the exact steps you’ll learn in this book, Donald Miller grew his small business from four employees working out of a basement to a 15 million dollar operation, increasing revenue sixfold in just six years. As Miller grew his own business from the ground up, he realized nobody had put together a simple, step-by-step playbook for growing a business. That book didn’t exist. Until now. In this book, you’ll learn the 6 steps to grow a successful small business and create a playbook to implement them—your Flight Plan.
-
-
Applied everything here, also on business made simple course and story brand book and my business grew
- By Marco Randazzo on 04-12-23
By: Donald Miller
-
The Lean Startup
- How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
- By: Eric Ries
- Narrated by: Eric Ries
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.
-
-
Informative, mature but not original or essential
- By Jason Comely on 02-19-13
By: Eric Ries
-
Behemoth
- A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World
- By: Joshua B. Freeman
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in a factory-made world: modern life is built on three centuries of advances in factory production, efficiency, and technology. But giant factories have also fueled our fears about the future since their beginnings, when William Blake called them "dark Satanic mills". Many factories that operated over the last two centuries - such as Homestead, River Rouge, and Foxconn - were known for the labor exploitation and class warfare they engendered, not to mention the environmental devastation caused by factory production.
-
-
Get rid of the fake accents
- By J. R. Valery on 03-13-18
-
The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution
- A Captivating Guide to the Age of Reason and a Period of Major Industrialization
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Jason Zenobia
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you want to discover the captivating history of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, then this two-in-one books bundle is for you. Includes: Age of Enlightenment and The Industrial Revolution.
-
-
Great overview of the subject
- By Vanimal on 09-20-23
-
Rise of the Robots
- Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
- By: Martin Ford
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a world of self-driving cars and big data, smart algorithms and Siri, we know that artificial intelligence is getting smarter every day. Though all these nifty devices and programs might make our lives easier, they're also well on their way to making "good" jobs obsolete. A computer winning Jeopardy might seem like a trivial, if impressive, feat, but the same technology is making paralegals redundant as it undertakes electronic discovery, and is soon to do the same for radiologists.
-
-
Robots yes, economics no
- By Honestly on 07-25-15
By: Martin Ford
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
How to Grow Your Small Business
- A 6-Step Plan to Help Your Business Take Off
- By: Donald Miller
- Narrated by: Donald Miller
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Using the exact steps you’ll learn in this book, Donald Miller grew his small business from four employees working out of a basement to a 15 million dollar operation, increasing revenue sixfold in just six years. As Miller grew his own business from the ground up, he realized nobody had put together a simple, step-by-step playbook for growing a business. That book didn’t exist. Until now. In this book, you’ll learn the 6 steps to grow a successful small business and create a playbook to implement them—your Flight Plan.
-
-
Applied everything here, also on business made simple course and story brand book and my business grew
- By Marco Randazzo on 04-12-23
By: Donald Miller
-
The Lean Startup
- How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
- By: Eric Ries
- Narrated by: Eric Ries
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.
-
-
Informative, mature but not original or essential
- By Jason Comely on 02-19-13
By: Eric Ries
-
Behemoth
- A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World
- By: Joshua B. Freeman
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in a factory-made world: modern life is built on three centuries of advances in factory production, efficiency, and technology. But giant factories have also fueled our fears about the future since their beginnings, when William Blake called them "dark Satanic mills". Many factories that operated over the last two centuries - such as Homestead, River Rouge, and Foxconn - were known for the labor exploitation and class warfare they engendered, not to mention the environmental devastation caused by factory production.
-
-
Get rid of the fake accents
- By J. R. Valery on 03-13-18
-
The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution
- A Captivating Guide to the Age of Reason and a Period of Major Industrialization
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Jason Zenobia
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you want to discover the captivating history of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, then this two-in-one books bundle is for you. Includes: Age of Enlightenment and The Industrial Revolution.
-
-
Great overview of the subject
- By Vanimal on 09-20-23
-
Rise of the Robots
- Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
- By: Martin Ford
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a world of self-driving cars and big data, smart algorithms and Siri, we know that artificial intelligence is getting smarter every day. Though all these nifty devices and programs might make our lives easier, they're also well on their way to making "good" jobs obsolete. A computer winning Jeopardy might seem like a trivial, if impressive, feat, but the same technology is making paralegals redundant as it undertakes electronic discovery, and is soon to do the same for radiologists.
-
-
Robots yes, economics no
- By Honestly on 07-25-15
By: Martin Ford
-
Management Challenges for the 21st Century
- By: Peter F. Drucker
- Narrated by: Mark Blum
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this major new work, Peter F. Drucker discusses how the new paradigms of management will change our basic assumptions about the practices and principles of management. Drucker explains "The New Information Revolution", discussing the information an executive needs and the information an executive owes.
-
-
Drucker for the Next Century
- By Dean on 04-24-03
By: Peter F. Drucker
-
Capitalism in America
- A History
- By: Alan Greenspan, Adrian Wooldridge
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the legendary former Fed Chairman and the acclaimed Economist writer and historian, the full, epic story of America's evolution from a small patchwork of threadbare colonies to the most powerful engine of wealth and innovation the world has ever seen.
-
-
Explains a lot
- By Scott on 02-18-19
By: Alan Greenspan, and others
-
The Vanishing American Corporation
- Navigating the Hazards of a New Economy
- By: Gerald F. Davis
- Narrated by: Jeff Hoyt
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It may be hard to believe in an era of Walmart, Citizens United, and the Koch brothers, but corporations are on the decline. The number of American companies listed on the stock market dropped by half between 1996 and 2012. In recent years we've seen some of the most storied corporations go bankrupt (General Motors, Chrysler, Eastman Kodak) or disappear entirely (Bethlehem Steel, Lehman Brothers, Borders).
-
-
Davis' Book is a Millennial Must Read
- By Nicholas Zinn on 04-26-16
By: Gerald F. Davis
-
The Rise and Fall of American Growth
- The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War
- By: Robert J. Gordon
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 30 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With medical advances, life expectancy between 1870 and 1970 grew from 45 to 72 years. The Rise and Fall of American Growth provides an in-depth account of this momentous era.
-
-
Over-detailed, with no engaging message
- By BehA on 01-31-17
By: Robert J. Gordon
-
Power and Progress
- Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity
- By: Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout history, technological change — whether it takes the form of agricultural improvements in the Middle Ages, the Industrial Revolution, or today’s artificial intelligence — has been viewed as a main driver of prosperity, working in the public interest. The reality, though, is that technology is shaped by what powerful people want and believe, generating riches, social respect, cultural prominence, and further political voice for those already powerful. For most of the rest of us, there is the illusion of progress.
-
-
A different take on Technology’s impact
- By Ricardo Ernst on 07-23-23
By: Daron Acemoglu, and others
-
The People's Republic of Walmart
- How the World's Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism
- By: Leigh Phillips, Michal Rozworski
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An engaging, polemical romp through economic theory, computational complexity, and the history of planning, The People's Republic of Walmart revives the conversation about how society can extend democratic decision-making to all economic matters. With the advances in information technology in recent decades and the emergence of globe-straddling collective enterprises, democratic planning in the interest of all humanity is more important and closer to attainment than ever before.
-
-
great content ideology lacking
- By Kindle Customer on 10-21-19
By: Leigh Phillips, and others
-
The Technology Trap
- Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation
- By: Carl Benedikt Frey
- Narrated by: Richard Lyddon
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Industrial Revolution to the age of artificial intelligence, The Technology Trap takes a sweeping look at the history of technological progress and how it has radically shifted the distribution of economic and political power among society’s members.
-
-
Very good
- By Brad on 07-04-19
-
The Exponential Age
- How Accelerating Technology Is Transforming Business, Politics, and Society
- By: Azeem Azhar
- Narrated by: Azeem Azhar
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
High-tech innovations are created at a dazzling speed, and it all points to a world that is getting faster at a dizzying pace. Azeem Azhar knows this better than most. Over the last three decades, he has founded companies bought by Amazon and Microsoft, served as the Economist’s first ever internet correspondent, and created a leading international tech newsletter and podcast, the Exponential View. Now, Azhar offers a revelatory new model for understanding how technology is changing the world.
-
-
Good & Bad
- By Jeff on 10-04-21
By: Azeem Azhar
-
Resource Revolution
- How to Capture the Biggest Business Opportunity in a Century
- By: Stefan Heck, Matt Rogers, Paul Carroll
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What do shale gas, Elon Musk’s Tesla, and the global apparel chain Zara share in common? In Resource Revolution, management experts Stefan Heck and Matt Rogers describe how each in its own way exemplifies a resource revolution - a use of natural resources so effective it defies conventional wisdom and enables breakthrough performance where others see only limits and shortcomings.
-
-
This book will open your eyes to the future!
- By pvtmadness on 02-02-16
By: Stefan Heck, and others
-
The Industrial Revolution
- A Captivating Guide to a Period of Major Industrialization and the Introduction of the Spinning Jenny, the Cotton Gin, Electricity, and Other Inventions
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Jason Zenobia
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For most of human existence, people lived in a somewhat similar fashion. Everything that has been produced, from food and raw materials to clothing and other finished products, has been done either solely by hand or with some help of animal power. This was the same across the eras and throughout the world, no matter how advanced or backward the various civilizations were. Yet, our lives today couldn’t be more different.
-
-
Excellent introduction
- By H. Paavilainen on 09-26-21
-
Driving Honda
- Inside the World’s Most Innovative Car Company
- By: Jeffrey Rothfeder
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades there have been two iconic Japanese auto companies. One has been endlessly studied and written about. The other has been generally underappreciated and misunderstood. Until now. Since its birth as a motorcycle company in 1949, Honda has steadily grown into the world’s fifth largest automaker and top engine manufacturer, as well as one of the most beloved, most profitable, and most consistently innovative multinational corporations.
-
-
it was ok.
- By chris p on 11-16-18
-
The Wealth of Humans
- Work, Power, and Status in the Twenty-first Century
- By: Ryan Avent
- Narrated by: Scott Merriman
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Digital technology is transforming every corner of the economy, fundamentally altering the way things are done, who does them, and what they earn for their efforts. In The Wealth of Humans, Economist editor Ryan Avent brings up-to-the-minute research and reporting to bear on the major economic question of our time: can the modern world manage technological changes every bit as disruptive as those that shook the socioeconomic landscape of the 19th century? Find out.
-
-
fantastic book... compelling narrative
- By Brent Fisher on 01-27-17
By: Ryan Avent
What listeners say about America's Assembly Line
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Raymond Bing
- 03-01-23
Great book, no matter how the narrator sounds.
Just a ton of insight in the world of assembling, I loved all of it. I slowed down the narration a little and that assisted in the voice being audible.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!