Wrecked

The infamous 1975 sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, according to Nelson and Podair, was about far more than the lives lost that day: It directly relates to the destruction of the American industrial economy. There has been a steep decline in industrial manufacturing in the upper Midwest that is inextricable from the reasons behind the sinking of the ill-fated ship. From a lack of liability to ongoing legal troubles, the effects of the shipwreck were felt long after the incident. Wrecked (Michigan State University Press) puts the Edmund Fitzgerald into a broader context to examine how such a tragedy came to be and what it reveals about American industry.