Nearly 50 years after the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior, most people know Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting ballad about the tragedy. But Tom Nelson argues there’s a much bigger story that the song—and most books about the disaster—never told.

In his new book “Wrecked: The Edmund Fitzgerald and the Sinking of the American Economy,” Nelson connects the 1975 shipwreck to the decline of American manufacturing, arguing that corporate cost-cutting and poor oversight didn’t just sink a ship—they helped sink an entire industrial economy. It’s a bold thesis from someone who’s spent his career fighting to save manufacturing jobs right here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Nelson isn’t just writing about these issues from the sidelines. Years of peer-reviewed research, including interviews with never-before heard from family members, impart on the reader a deeply personal and unique perspective on the disaster that continues to captivate generations of Americans.

Enjoy three variations of The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot, Headstones and The Longest Johns.

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Guest: Tom Nelson