Freedom's Forge

Remarkableas it may seem today, there once was a time when the president of the UnitedStates could pick up the phone and ask the president of General Motors toresign his position and take the reins of a great national enterprise. And theCEO would oblige, no questions asked, because it was his patriotic duty.

In Freedom's Forge, bestselling author Arthur Herman takes us back tothat time, revealing how two extraordinary American businessmen-automobilemagnate William Knudsen and shipbuilder Henry J. Kaiser-helped corral, cajole,and inspire business leaders across the country to mobilize the "arsenal ofdemocracy" that propelled the Allies to victory in World War II.

"Knudsen? I want to see you in Washington. I want you to work on someproduction matters." With those words, President Franklin D. Roosevelt enlisted"Big Bill" Knudsen, a Danish immigrant who had risen through the ranks of theauto industry to become president of General Motors, to drop his plans formarket domination and join the U.S. Army. Commissioned a lieutenant general,Knudsen assembled a crack team of industrial innovators, persuading them one byone to leave their lucrative private sector positions and join him inWashington, D.C. Dubbed the "dollar-a-year men," these dedicated patriotsquickly took charge of America's moribund war production effort.

Henry J. Kaiser was a maverick California industrialist famed for hisinnovative business techniques and his can-do management style. He, too, joinedthe cause. His Liberty ships became World War II icons-and the Kaiser namebecame so admired that FDR briefly considered making him his vice president in1944. Together, Knudsen and Kaiser created a wartime production behemoth.Drafting top talent from companies like Chrysler, Republic Steel, Boeing,Lockheed, GE, and Frigidaire, they turned auto plants into aircraft factoriesand civilian assembly lines into fountains of munitions, giving Americansfighting in Europe and Asia the tools they needed to defeat the Axis. In fourshort years they transformed America's army from a hollow shell into a trulyglobal force, laying the foundations for a new industrial America-and for thecountry's rise as an economic as well as military superpower.

Featuring behind-the-scenes portraits of FDR, George Marshall, Henry Stimson,Harry Hopkins, Jimmy Doolittle, and Curtis LeMay, as well as scores of largelyforgotten heroes and heroines of the wartime industrial effort, Freedom'sForge is the American story writ large. It vividly re-creates Americanindustry's finest hour, when the nation's business elites put aside theirpursuit of profits and set about saving the world.

ArthurHerman is the bestselling author of How the Scots Invented the Modern World,which has sold over 350,000 copies worldwide, and To Rule the Waves: Howthe British Navy Shaped the Modern World, which was nominated for theprestigious Mountbatten Prize in 2005. He is a former professor of history atGeorgetown University, Catholic University, and the Smithsonian's Campus on theMall. He and his wife live in central Virginia.

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Advancepraise for Freedom's Forge:

"World War II could not have been won without the vital support and innovationof American industry. Arthur Herman's engrossing and superbly researchedaccount of how this came about, and the two men primarily responsible fororchestrating it, is one of the last great, untold stories of the war."-CarloD'Este, author of Patton: A Genius forWar

"It takes a writer of Arthur Herman's caliber to make a story essentially basedon industrial production exciting, but this book is a truly thrilling story ofthe contribution made by American business to the destruction of Fascism. WithAmerica producing two-thirds of the Allies' weapons in World War II, thecontribution of those who played a vital part in winning the war, yet who neveronce donned a uniform, has been downplayed or ignored for long enough. Here istheir story, with new heroes to admire-such as William Knudsen and Henry Kaiser-whopersonified the can-do spirit of those stirring times."-Andrew Roberts, authorof The Storm of War