“An original and penetrating study of the evolution of the global watch industry. Glasmeier takes us from the Swiss watch industry to the world of electronics in the last years of the 20th century. She has created a remarkable story of an industry and its regions.”

—Gordon L. Clark, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford


“Amy Glasmeier has written an excellent historical synthesis of the institutional and organizational conditions that have shaped industrial development and international competition in the watch industry over the past two centuries. This book is an important addition to a small but growing number of industry case studies that show how the same social forces that supported national industrial leadership in the past can inhibit responses to international competitive challenges. Glasmeier has provided a thought-provoking study of both the sources of institutional inertia and the dynamics of industrial change.”

—William Lazonick, Euro-Asia Research Centre, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France


“This book takes on all of the big questions in industrial history and geography. Along the way, it yields important insights into how knowledge is produced and contested within specific industrial cultures; how market 'signals' are received and understood, depending on how they are transmitted and by whom; and the thousand things that can go right or wrong in an industry—with immense consequences for people and the places in which they live.”

—Erica Schoenberger, Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Johns Hopkins University