Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America's Rust Belt, 1969-1984. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003.

Plant shutdowns in Canada and the United States from 1969 to 1984 led to an ongoing and ravaging industrial decline of the Great Lakes Region. Industrial Sunset offers a comparative regional analysis of the economic and cultural devastation caused by the shutdowns, and provides an insightful examination of how mill and factory workers on both sides of the border made sense of their own displacement. The history of deindustrialization rendered in cultural terms reveals the importance of community and national identifications in how North Americans responded to the problem. Using cultural references such as Bruce Springsteen's poignant lyrics and Michael Moore's irreverent documentary, Roger & Me, Steven High engages the reader at street-level, presenting all the debates and shifting strategies of unions and government officials, showing how worker displacement can effect ongoing nation-building. With a narrative that draws as much upon oral history interviews, poetry and song as it does archival and statistical material, Industrial Sunset poses new questions about group identification and solidarity in the face of industrial transformation:  How did displaced workers respond to plant closures and job loss?  How did plant closing opponents conceive of their struggle?  Who did they identify with?  Who did they blame?  Ultimately, did their hopeful apeals of identification to national and local communities fulfill their promise?  In a cross-national comparative framework, Steven High opens up new perspectives on Canadian and American industrial, political, and cultural development.

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