ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book develops a better understanding of nineteenth-century industrial production networks in the history of American-style harvesting machines. It reinterprets the rise of the giant corporations, International Harvester Company (IHC) and Massey-Harris, by inquiring into the business networks and practices of their predecessors. The analysis presented in the book unsettles the idea that the nation state with its integrated national space economy pre-dates the transnational integration of business. It disturbs the idea historically; products were made in unique and discrete national economies and internationalized through foreign direct investment. The American reaper was a creature of transnational networks. Networking in a dispersed production system made it possible to diffuse the American reaper to other manufacturers, each producing for regional markets. The book shifts the emphasis within David Noble's insightful coupling of the history of modern technology with rise of corporate capitalism in America.
