This book offers a critical history of government policy toward the U.S. automobile industry in order to assess the impact of the large corporation on American democracy. Drawing together the main policy issues affecting the automobile industry over the past forty years--occupant safety, emissions, fuel economy and trade--the work examines how the industry established its hegemony over the public perception of vehicle safety to inhibit federal regulation, and the battle for federal regulation that succeeded in toppling this hegemony in 1966; the subsequent efforts to include pollution...