Building the Next American Century – The Past and Future of American Economic Competitiveness - Softcover

Essential reading for anyone interested in how the United States can maintain high living standards in a hyper-competitive world economy. Hughes has provided the essential context―past, present, and future―for the major policy debates of this decade. He has superbly described not just the challenges America faces, but also the opportunities ahead if the right choices are made.

The United States experienced two decades of deep anxiety over its national competitiveness from the early 1970s into the 1990s, with profound effects on both policy and perceptions. This new book provides a superb description and analysis of that key period and applies its lessons to America's position in the world economy of the twenty-first century.

Kent Hughes has written exactly the right book at exactly the right time. America today faces fundamental questions about its ability to compete and to maintain the American dream for its citizens. Today's leaders would do well to read this book.

To fashion our response to the latest economic challenges from China and India, we need to know what we did in the early 1980s, when we faced tough competition from Japan and Germany. With Kent Hughes's book, we can avoid spinning our wheels on issues that already have been thoroughly vetted. I have proposed that we create a new commission on competitiveness. Kent's book explains what we learned from the first one―the Young Commission―and provides a superb grounding.

Given his personal involvement in this subject in key government and private sector roles, Kent is qualified uniquely, not only to put this subject in historical context, but also to take us forward, as he does with six broad and important recommendations to strengthen our American innovation system. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in American competitiveness, and that should be all of us.

Will interest readers as much for its treatment of the dynamics of Washington policymaking as for its approach to the main topic.

A wide-ranging, in-depth account of national and international economic policy in the US during the post-WWII period. Highly recommended.

Kent H. Hughes, trained as both an economist and a lawyer, worked on economic ideas, publications, and legislation as a congressional staffer and participant in several presidential campaigns. He was president of the Council in Competitiveness and served as associate deputy secretary of Commerce during the Clinton administration. He is currently director of the Program on America and the Global Economy at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.