Post-Fordism

Part analysis of contemporary change and part vision of the future, post-Fordism lends its name to a set of challenging, essential and controversial debates over the nature of capitalism's newest age. This book provides an introduction to debates over the nature of capitalism's newest age and includes key texts by post-Fordism's major theorists and commentators. At the heart of the book lie several related questions. Is the mass production era of Henry Ford now over, and has Fordism finished? Are new information technologies transforming western economies and creating new forms of social, political and cultural life in the process? The answers have been hotly contested, not least by writers sympathetic to a post-Fordist perspective. From Ash Amin's indispensable introductory essay to Susan Christopherson's bracing account of the contemporary fortress city, this book is a guide through post-Fordism's models, fantasies and phantoms of transition. The other contributors are: Mark Elam, Josef Esser, Mike Featherstone, David Harvey, Joachim Hirsch, Bob Jessop, Alain Lipietz, Anders Malmberg, Margit Mayer, Jamie Peck, Charles Sabel, Michael Storper, Adam Tickell, and John Tomaney.