How Local Politics Shape Federal Policy: Business, Power, and the Environment in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles

摘要

In recent years historians have demonstrated how business in the United States worked to gain ever-greater influence over the nation's political system during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Groups like the United States Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers lobbied, bankrolled and wrote legislation while waging massive public relations campaigns to convince the public that the desires of business were synonymous with the interests of citizens. But, as Sarah S. Elkind makes plain in an interesting and important contribution to this body of work, business also went to work to convince the public, and especially lawmakers, that its goals were likewise best for the environment.