Books with title The Cinder Buggy: A Fable in Iron and Steel

Garet Garrett's fiction deals with the social impact of economic transformations. In The Driver, he deals with railroads, while Satan's Bushel examines agriculture. The Cinder Buggy, his second in the trilogy, is the longest of the three and his true epoch novel and unforgettable masterpiece. With a great story, and tremendous literary passion, it chronicles the transformation of America from the age of iron to the age of steel.It covers the period between 1820 and 1870 and its dramatic march of technology. The plot concerns an ongoing war between two industrialists, one the hero who is beaten in the first generation and the other who is malevolent but wins the first round in the competitive drive. The struggle continues through the second generation, which leads to a titanic battle over whether steel or iron will triumph and why.Wrought iron is what made New Damascus tick and the two men who made it happen were named Aaron Breakspeare and Enoch Gib. Aaron is beloved but not a great businessmen. He had dreamed of the steel age but failed to make it happen. Enoch is a good businessman but dour and widely loathed for his miserliness and his treatment of others. A feud over a banker's daughter leads to the initial dissolution of the partnership, and the son of the resulting union, John Breakspeare, returns to New Damascus to enter the iron business.This leads to a fascinating repeat of events that causes another dissolution, this one more bitter and shocking than the last. The feud continues over iron and then over steel until steel wins the victory after many fits and starts. In the course of the story, the reader discovers how it is that technology has such a dramatic effect on society, and how risk and entrepreneurship are at the very heart of it all.Whereas this genre of fiction usually deals with real war, Garrett employs every literary device to make commerce itself the setting for great acts of courage, heroism, sacrifice, and tragedy. And as with his other books, the central mover of events here is the price system. It is the signal for and cause of the most notable changes in the plot. The reader discovers economics in a way that might otherwise not be possible, and it is hard to imagine that anyone could come away with anything but love of the whole subject of enterprise.Garrett does not portray the market as some idealized utopia. We have here the full range of human emotion and motivation at work: arrogance, pride, malice, love, compassion, jealousy, rage, and everything else. What is striking is that all these emotions play themselves out in a setting that is ultimately peaceful. No one can fully control how prices change, and it is these changes that act to reward virtues and punish vices.We also have here a realistic portrayal of the truth about innovation. It is not enough to come up with a good idea. That idea must be embodied in real production that takes place in a cost-reducing way, and then marketed in the service of society. The unity of technology, accounting, and marketing must all come together to make possible such things as technological revolutions.There has never been, before or since, economic fiction that can compare with the high quality standards set by Garrett in these smashing novels. The Cinder Buggy could easily be considered the best of his work in this area. It is a wonderful novel for anyone who loves, or wants to more deeply understand, American history, economic theory, and the place of technology in the molding of society. To search for Mises Institute titles, enter a keyword and "LvMI" (short for Ludwig von Mises Institute); e.g., "Depression LvMI"

Excerpt from The Cinder Buggy: A Fable in Iron, and SteelThe town has nothing to sell except the finest wrought iron in the world. As the quality of this iron is historic and the form of it a standard muck bar for use in further manufacture you order it from afar at a price based on what is current in Pittsburgh.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Garet Garrett's fiction deals with the social impact of economic transformations. In The Driver, he deals with railroads, while Satan's Bushel examines agricultural. The Cinder Buggy, his second in the trilogy, is the longest of the three and his true epoch novel and unforgettable masterpiece. With a great story, and tremendous literary passion, it chronicles the transformation of America from the age of iron to the age of steel. It covers the period between 1820 and 1870 and its dramatic technology march. The plot concerns an ongoing war between two industrialists, one the hero who is beaten in the first generation and the other who is malevolent but initially wins a first round in the competitive drive. The struggle continues through the second generation, which leads to a titanic battle over whether steel or iron would triumph and why. Garrett does not portray the market as some idealized utopia. We have here the full range of human emotion and motivation at work: arrogance, pride, malice, love, compassion, jealousy, rage, and everything else. What is striking is that all these emotions play themselves out in a setting that is ultimately peaceful. No one can fully control price movements, and it is these that act to reward virtues and punish vices. There has never been, before or since, economic fiction that can compare with this super high quality standards set by Garrett in these smashing novels. The Cinder Buggy could easily be considered the best of his work in this area. It is a wonderful novel for anyone who loves, or wants to more deeply understand, American history, economic theory, and the place of technology in the molding of society. 365 page paperback 2007

Excerpt from The Cinder Buggy: A Fable in Iron, and SteelThe town has nothing to sell except the finest wrought iron in the world. As the quality of this iron is historic and the form of it a standard muck bar for use in further manufacture you order it from afar at a price based on what is current in Pittsburgh.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This is the second of three novels with a free market theme written by the author in the early 1920's, the first being "The Driver" and the last "Satan's Bushel". "The Cinder Buggy"'s plot revolves around the historic quest to perfect the manufacture of steel rails for the rapidly growing railroad industry, which initially used only iron rails. The steel age that would follow was the most dynamic in human history, as mighty skyscrapers, bridges, sailing vessels, and many other things which could only be dreamt of in the past, could now be built.Garrett was a fine novelist, and successfully mixed in believable action and love sequences into his stories about the wonders of capitalism in a way that Ayn Rand could only envy.The writing style is a bit old-fashioned, but easy to read and follow. "The Cinder Buggy" is great reading from the historical perspective, as well as a fine novel.