Book Reviews and Notices : Wartime Production Controls. BY DAVID NOVICK, MELVIN ANSHEN, AND VUILLIAM TRUPPNER. (New York: Columbia University Press. 1949. Pp. vi, 441. $6.00.)

• Published date: 01 September 1949
• DOI: 10.1177/106591294900200353
• Date: 01 September 1949
• Author: Marver H. Bernstein
• Subject Matter: Articles

470

by

too

rich

a

diet;

he

must

take

it

slowly.

For

the

person

who

has

read

in

the

subject,

the

volume

conveniently

assembles

a

number

of

the

more

provocative

writings

to

come

out

of

the

field

in

the

last

few

years,

and

it

will

introduce

some

new

names

that

apparently

have

something

to

con-

tribute

to

the

science.

The

pieces

by

Paul

H.

Appleby

are

especially

worth

reading.

The

articles

are

presented

without

editorial

comment

or

individual

introductions,

and

the

pattern

sought

to

be

created

by

sequence

is

not

as

clear

as

it

might

be.

A

good

many

obvious

typographical

errors

detract

from

what

is

otherwise

a

handsome

format.

University

of

Illinois.

ROBERT

H.

CONNERY.

Wartime

Production

Controls.

BY

DAVID

NOVICK,

MELVIN

ANSHEN,

AND

VUILLIAM

TRUPPNER.

(New

York:

Columbia

University

Press.

1949.

Pp.

vi,

441.

$6.00.)

This

book

describes

and

analyzes

for

the

expert

and

the

specialist

the

controls

administered

by

the

War

Production

Board

during

the

war

years

1940

to

1945.

It

faithfully

carries

out

the

authors’

intention

to

con-

centrate

on

&dquo;a

detailed

analysis

of

the

methods

and

procedures

by

means

of

which

the

wartime

administration

of

the

industrial

economy

of

the

United

States

was

conducted.&dquo;

After

two

brief

introductory chapters

which

sketch

the

setting

of

wartime

industrial

mobilization,

the

study

discusses

the

evolution

and

administration

of

the

principal

control

tech-

niques,

including

material

control

procedures,

limitation

and

conservation

orders,

priorities,

the

production

requirement

plan,

and

the

controlled

materials

plan.

The

application

of

these

controls

to

lumber,

tires,

and

certain

cotton

fabrics

is

analyzed,

and

problems

of

scheduling,

con-

struction,

and

inventories

are

presented.

The

non-specialist

and

general

student

of

administration

will

be

primarily

interested

in

the

last

two

chapters

which

outline

the

authors’

conclusions

about

our

wartime

exper-

ience

in

controlling

industrial

production

and

suggestions

for

planning

industrial

mobilization

for

the

next

war.

The

typical

American

emphasis

on

&dquo;know~how&dquo;

in

manufacturing

enterprise

is

here

applied

to

one

of

the

most

important

areas

of

public

management.

The

detailed

analysis

of

administrative

experience

in

pro-

duction

controls

is

needlessly

disturbed

by

the

authors’

repeated

in-

sistence

that

the

wartime

failure

in

public

management

was

in

the

field

of

policy

execution

rather

than

the

area

of

policy-making.

The

authors

assume

from

the

outset

that

&dquo;the

major

error

in

industrial

administration,

in

the

war

recently

concluded,

was

the

failure

to

appreciate

the

dominant

significance

of

methods

of

executing

determined

policies.&dquo;

Such

varied