Combining theories of calculation and property relations and using an array of archival sources, this book focuses on the building and decommissioning of state-owned defense factories in World War II-era Chicago. Robert Lewis's rich trove of material--drawn from research on more than six hundred federally funded wartime industrial sites in metropolitan Chicago--supports three major conclusions. First, the relationship of the key institutions of the military-industrial complex was refashioned by their calculative actions on industrial property. The imperatives of war forced the federal...

Combining theories of calculation and property relations and using an array of archival sources, this book focuses on the building and decommissioning of state-owned defense factories in World War II-era Chicago. Robert Lewis's rich trove of material--drawn from research on more than six hundred federally funded wartime industrial sites in metropolitan Chicago--supports three major conclusions. First, the relationship of the key institutions of the military-industrial complex was refashioned by their calculative actions on industrial property. The imperatives of war forced the federal...