Business bookshelf: 'Neither Snow nor Rain' chronicles the history and politics of the post office

Devin Leonard, Grove Press, 288 pages, $26. Of the marvels French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville found in his tour of 1830s America, the postal service had them all beat. It was "the great link between minds," he wrote, one that bound the fledgling nation together by getting information crucial to maintaining a democracy to the tiniest hamlets. "Neither Snow nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Service" charts the growth of the organization and its role in our nation's growth — and how delivering the mail shaped everything from national transportation systems (from roads to airlines) to our national character, even as economic and political forces put its future in question. From a shutdown in Chicago during the civil rights era to the phenomenon of "going postal," Leonard puts the incidents in context. Leonard celebrates some of the post office's most important innovators, like John Wanamaker, the Philadelphia department-store magnate who under President Benjamin Harrison launched Rural Free Delivery but had many of his other innovations short-circuited by Congress. And he also writes about the politics that somehow held the system back. For example, the U.S. Postal Service launched its own version of digital delivery — called E-COM — in 1982, years before AOL was telling us cheerfully that we had mail. Not surprisingly, after political obstacles to funding, the postal service pulled the plug in 1985. Leonard leaves his readers hopeful about the post office's future. As he points out, how else are we going to get all that stuff we order online?

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel