William R. Childs. The Texas Railroad Commission: Understanding Regulation in America to the Mid-Twentieth Century. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. x+323 pp. ISBN 1-58544-452-9, $35.00.

In his new book, The Texas Railroad Commission: UnderstandingRegulation in America to the Mid-Twentieth Century, historianWilliam Childs explores the history of regulation in the contextof one of the most interesting state commissions in the UnitedStates. He provides a counterpoint to many economists’narrow analysis of regulation on the basis of efficiency. Regulation,he says, has to be understood as a social, cultural, and politicalphenomena operating within the federalist framework