Whither the American worker? As U.S. manufacturing jobs vanish, unemployment rises, and industry shifts across the Pacific, it's a question that continues to prod the national psyche.

With the future of "Made in America" uncertain, protectionist sentiment has intensified, and many in the U.S. regard foreign companies as threats to the American way of life.

Yet lest we blame all our woes on outsiders, argues Micheline Maynard, senior business correspondent at The New York Times, we must consider the other side of the story. Foreign firms, it turns out, play a critical role in creating jobs on American soil. In The Selling of the American Economy, Maynard takes us on a tour of an industrial America being revitalized by foreign investment.

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