Authors: Bob Skilnik.
Hardcover, 416 pages
Publisher: Barricade Books
Publication Date: 2006-08-25


Reviews :

    The rise and fall of the Chicago brewing industry is played out in this fascinating book, which takes readers back to early Chicago and its neighborhood breweries and saloons to today’s biggest beer marketing battlefield. Here is a colorful and true tale that describes the opening of the first Chicago brewery, the Great Chicago Fire and the origins of Miller Lite.

The final days of the once popular Schlitz and Old Style brands are also covered, to contemporary Chicago, where one mistake can close a brewery.

From the Roaring Twenties and Al Capone, Prohibition and its mob-controlled breweries, and Jesse Jackson and the Anheuser-Busch boycott, this is the definitive book of the once powerful Chicago industry.

Highlights of BEER: A History of Brewing in Chicago include:

•Famous lager beer riots
•Battles with Milwaukee’s breweries
•Al Capone, Prohibition, speakeasies, and the Chicago mob
•Beer and politics in Chicago
•Contemporary brewery casualties
•A detailed list of every Chicago brewery since 1833 with addresses and dates of operation
•A guided tour of still-standing local breweries and more!...

Authors: Sea-Jin Chang.
Paperback, 250 pages
Publisher: Wiley
Publication Date: 2008-08-08


Reviews :

    Sony vs. Samsung is business history at its best! It explores the divergent fortunes of these two electronics giants in the last decade and identifies the true reasons behind Sony's decline and Samsung's rise. Contrary to popular belief, Chang shows that success (or failure) does not simply arise from different strategies. Rather, it emerges from major decisions that are deeply rooted in the companies' organizational processes and their executives' political behavior. This book is a must-read for any senior executive. --Constantinos Markides
Robert P. Bauman Professor of Strategic Leadership and Chairman,
Strategy Department, London Business School

Sea-Jin Chang has produced that rarity in a business book--one that is as valuable to practicing managers as it is insightful to academic researchers. In this fascinating comparison of two modern global giants, he applies his high resolution research microscope to their changing fortunes by dissecting their contrasting strategies, and providing interesting insights into their divergent organizational processes and management practices. This is a very valuable contribution to the international business literature. It will end up in as many corporate boardrooms as faculty seminars.--Christopher A. Bartlett
Thomas D. Casserly Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School

Sea-Jin Chang has written a fascinating comparison of Sony and Samsung that will be valuable to anyone interested in strategy, organizations or international business. The interwoven and very detailed case studies of two very different companies in overlapping industries illuminate problems such as adaptation to technological change (analog to digital), organizational flexibility and globalization. His attempt to analyze both strategic development and implementation is successful and very useful. Both academics and practitioners will learn a lot from this book.--Stephen J. Kobrin, William Wurster Professor of Multinational Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Refreshingly original and entertaining, this book analyzes major strategic decisions of Samsung and Sony and highlights organizational processes and top management leadership that have shaped their performances. This is a must-read for all executives who want to understand the strengths and weaknesses of Asian competitors. It also provides penetrating insights to other Asian companies with global ambitions.-- Myoung Woo Lee, President and CEO
iriver...

Authors: Philip E. Orbanes.
Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Publication Date: 2003-11-14


Reviews :

   

The Monopoly game, Trivial Pursuit, Clue, Boggle, and Risk are more than games-they're part of Americana. All of these games were published by one company, Parker Brothers, which began as a dream inside the mind of a sixteen-year-old boy, over one hundred years ago.

In The Game Makers, industry expert Phil Orbanes reveals how, by adhering to the principles of its founder, Parker Brothers rose to prominence, overcame obstacles, and forged lasting success. Orbanes, a game historian and former executive at Parker Brothers, draws from company archives, interviews with surviving family members, and the newly discovered records of founder George Parker to tell a story rich in examples of business acumen that spans world wars, family tragedy, the Great Depression, and global competition. Pairing Parker's enduring business lessons with little-known historical anecdotes, Orbanes reveals the often whimsical origin of classic games-Tiddledy Winks, Monopoly, Nerf, Sorry!, the modern jigsaw puzzle, and more-and how Parker Brothers turned them into cultural icons.

Engaging and insightful, The Game Makers explains the rules that popularized the games we play and reveals the people who built an American business empire.

"From one who loves games: The Game Makers is a real page-turner. Nobody knows the subject matter better than Phil Orbanes, and it shows. A most compelling read."

-Wink Martindale, host, Music of Your Life, and veteran host for award-winning game shows such as Can You Top This , Tic-Tac-Dough, and Trivial Pursuit.

"Phil Orbanes is a gifted chronicler. He serves up a tantalizing tale of fast-paced competition, drama, risk, eccentric personalities, and strategy, in one of the world's most competitive industries. The reader wins!"

-Richard C. Levy, Author, The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook

"In this deeply researched look at the evolution of business practices within the world of 'game makers,' Phil Orbanes takes readers on a journey in which they will happily recall the joyful hours spent playing the games that rolled off the presses at Parker Brothers."

-John J. Fox, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Salem State College

"A classic tale of American entrepreneurship, The Game Makers is a detailed study of successful business expansion and an insider's view of the cultural conflict between a corporate parent and its prize acquisition. This history of Parker Brothers offers something of interest to any serious student of American business practices."

-Linda M. Lemiesz, Ph.D., Dean of Students, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Arts

"I thoroughly enjoyed Phil Orbanes's journey through the history of Parker Brothers. Enjoyable and informative, The Game Makers is a fascinating account of how one individual's strength of character-or weakness-exerted a significant influence over a company's fortunes."

-Ralph H. Baer, Toy and Game Inventor, and Father of Video Games

...

Authors: Richard E. Foglesong.
Paperback, 274 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication Date: 2003-04-10


Reviews :

    Joined together in an extraordinarily close relationship, Walt Disney World and Orlando, Florida, have become the world’s most popular tourist destination. This intriguing book traces the history of the ups and downs of this "marriage" and tells the inside story of Disney’s use and abuse of unparalleled governmental powers. The tale raises important questions about cities and the economic development choices they confront....

Authors: George P. Baker. George David Smith.
Hardcover, 272 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: 1998-10-13


Reviews :

    A widespread misunderstanding concerning leveraged buyouts (LBOs) is the belief that they accomplish little but the ruin of companies and the loss of employment. How else could it be? Until recently, journalists, including much of the business press, have depicted LBO specialists as generally greedy, if not sinister, forces whose activities compound the dislocations of modern American economic and social life. This kind of criticism reached a crescendo in the press and in Congress at the end of the 1980s, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts found itself in the middle of the controversy. Based on interviews with partners of the firm and on unprecedented access to KKR's records, George P. Baker and George David Smith have written a definitive account of how KKR has approached LBOs in a book that will appeal to the specialist and general reader alike. The authors focus on KKR's founding, evolution, and innovations as ways to understand issues in modern American business. In examining KKR as a unique form of enterprise--one that subscribes to a set of alternative perspectives on business and value creation--the book bridges the gap between public perception and academic knowledge of how financial innovation impacts economic life. The firm's approach to leveraged buyouts was an important aspect of the corporate restructuring and governance reforms in the American economy from the mid-1970s through 1990 (the years of what some have called the "leveraged buyout movement"). KKR and other companies fundamentally altered the prevailing perception of the role of debt in the modern American corporation and established an alternative model for organizing and managing corporate enterprises. KKR financed the companies it acquired with high levels of debt, while linking their ownership to management. It then imposed rigorous monitoring by the board of directors over the companies in its portfolio. This combination of factors forced managers to concentrate not on growth but rather on how to achieve value through whatever means was most appropriate to the company's circumstances. The purpose of the leveraged buyout was to realize, or "create," value in companies by reforming their management systems. KKR's approach to restructuring the relationship between owners and managers in a highly leveraged firm rested on a basic principle: Make managers owners by making them invest a significant share of their personal wealth in the enterprises they manage, and they will have stronger incentives to act in the best interests of all shareholders....

Authors: T.R. Reid.
Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Publication Date: 2001-10-09
Edition: Revised

Reviews :

    Barely fifty years ago a computer was a gargantuan, vastly expensive thing that only a handful of scientists had ever seen. The world’s brightest engineers were stymied in their quest to make these machines small and affordable until the solution finally came from two ingenious young Americans. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce hit upon the stunning discovery that would make possible the silicon microchip, a work that would ultimately earn Kilby the Nobel Prize for physics in 2000. In this completely revised and updated edition of The Chip, T.R. Reid tells the gripping adventure story of their invention and of its growth into a global information industry. This is the story of how the digital age began....

    They're everywhere, but where did they come from? Silicon chips drive just about everything that sucks power, from toys to heart monitors, but their inventors aren't nearly as widely known as Edison and Ford. Journalist T.R. Reid has thoroughly updated The Chip, his 1985 exploration of the life work of inventors Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, to reflect the colossal shift toward smarter gadgets that has taken place since then.

Satisfying as both biography and basic science text, the book perfectly captures the independence and near-obsessive problem-solving talents of the two men. Though ultimately only one of them (Noyce) ended up with legal rights to the invention, they shared a respect for each other that persisted throughout their careers. Since Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize for Physics for his work, the story is all the more compelling and intriguing over 40 years after the invention. Reid's work uncovers human dimensions we'd never expect to see from 1950s engineering research. --Rob Lightner...

Authors: Tom McNichol.
Hardcover, 208 pages
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Publication Date: 2006-09-18


Reviews :

    AC/DC tells the little-known story of how Thomas Edison wrongly bet in the fierce war between supporters of alternating current and direct current. The savagery of this electrical battle can hardly be imagined today. The showdown between AC and DC began as a rather straightforward conflict between technical standards, a battle of competing methods to deliver essentially the same product, electricity. But the skirmish soon metastasized into something bigger and darker. In the AC/DC battle, the worst aspects of human nature somehow got caught up in the wires; a silent, deadly flow of arrogance, vanity, and cruelty. Following the path of least resistance, the war of currents soon settled around that most primal of human emotions: fear. AC/DC serves as an object lesson in bad business strategy and poor decision making. Edison's inability to see his mistake was a key factor in his loss of control over the operating system for his future inventions–not to mention the company he founded, General Electric....

Authors: Doris Christopher.
Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books
Publication Date: 2005-07-05


Reviews :

    The Pampered Chef is Doris Christopher’s extraordinary account of how she turned an innovative concept and $3,000 investment into a business with annual sales approaching the billion-dollar mark. It is packed with real-life lessons and inspiring insights for small-business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs.

In 1980 Doris Christopher, a former home economist and teacher, was itching to get back into the workforce after an eight-year hiatus as a stay-at-home mom. Drawing on her personal and professional expertise, and determined to make cooking easier and more convenient for families, she started selling high-quality kitchen tools through cooking demonstrations to groups of women in their homes. Today, the company she started in her basement, The Pampered Chef, is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary and has grown into a corporation (now owned by Berkshire Hathaway) with tens of thousands of independent Kitchen Consultants who present more than a million Kitchen Shows a year, attended by more than 12 million people.

The Pampered Chef is the story of the vision, energy, hard work, and chutzpah that drove Christopher and her company to the height of success. She describes her early days as a “one-woman show,” chronicles the company’s gradual expansion, its challenges and growing popularity, and the process, offers invaluable advice and sound strategies on how to found and grow a business, including:

• Hard learned lessons for start-up entrepreneurs

• How to create a business concept and set your priorities

• Knowing when to expand and when to slow growth so that demand doesn’t overwhelm your operations or supplies

• How to counter the naysayers and deal with adversity

Today, as at the company’s founding, achieving a better balance between work and family remains central to The Pampered Chef’s mission. The Pampered Chef brings Christopher’s recipe for success to women, and men, everywhere....

Authors: Paul-Gerard Pasols.
Hardcover, 616 pages
Publisher: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc."
Publication Date: 2005-11-01


Reviews :

    The first in-depth portrait of one of the world's best-known luxury brands, this elegant volume traces the remarkable history of the House of Vuitton, which has been making practical but stylish luggage, handbags, and accessories for more than 150 years. Written with full access to the company's archives, the book itself demonstrates Louis Vuitton's passion for fine design in a stunning array of archival art, historical images, product designs and sketches, and cutting-edge advertising.

Author Paul-Gerard Pasols, former communications director and longtime consultant to Louis Vuitton, explores the company's tradition of quality and innovation in the context of sweeping changes in society, art, culture, fashion, and, above all, travel. Examining the life and times of the company's first three leaders-founder Louis (who invented the modern trunk), his son Georges, and his grandson Gaston-the text focuses on the firm's development under their guidance. It also discusses Vuitton's explosive growth toward the end of the 20th century, including the 1987 merger with Moët-Hennessy that made it part of LVMH, the world's largest luxury goods company, and spurred the expansion of its boutiques to more than 300 locations in 50 countries around the globe. ...

Authors: Les Standiford.
Hardcover, 336 pages
Publisher: Crown
Publication Date: 2005-05-10


Reviews :

    Here is history that reads like fiction: the riveting story of two founding fathers of American industry—Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick—and the bloody steelworkers’ strike that transformed their fabled partnership into a furious rivalry. Author Les Standiford begins at the bitter end, when the dying Carnegie proposes a final meeting after two decades of separation, probably to ease his conscience. Frick’s reply: “Tell him that I’ll meet him in hell.”

It is a fitting epitaph. Set against the backdrop of the Gilded Age, a time when Horatio Alger preached the gospel of upward mobility and expansionism went hand in hand with optimism, Meet You in Hell is a classic tale of two men who embodied the best and worst of American capitalism. Standiford conjures up the majesty and danger of steel manufacturing, the rough-and-tumble of late-nineteenth-century big business, and the fraught relationship of “the world’s richest man” and the ruthless coke magnate to whom he entrusted his companies. Enamored of Social Darwinism, the emerging school of thought that applied the notion of survival of the fittest to human society, both Carnegie and Frick would introduce revolutionary new efficiencies and meticulous cost control to their enterprises, and would quickly come to dominate the world steel market.

But their partnership had a dark side, revealed most starkly by their brutal handling of the Homestead Steel Strike of 1892. When Frick, acting on Carnegie’s orders to do whatever was necessary, unleashed three hundred Pinkerton detectives, the result was the deadliest clash between management and labor in U.S. history. WHILE BLOOD FLOWED, FRICK SMOKED ran one newspaper headline. The public was outraged. An anarchist tried to assassinate Frick. Even today, the names Carnegie and Frick cannot be uttered in some union-friendly communities.

Resplendent with tales of backroom chicanery, bankruptcy, philanthropy, and personal idiosyncrasy, Meet You in Hell is a fitting successor to Les Standiford’s masterly Last Train to Paradise. Artfully weaving the relationship of these titans through the larger story of a young nation’s economic rise, Standiford has created an extraordinary work of popular history....

    The relationship between industrialists Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick is an illuminating window on American capitalism as well as a fascinating study of how a strong partnership can give way to vicious acrimony. Les Standiford tells the story of the two men in Meet You in Hell, a book that draws its title from Frick's angry rejoinder to Carnegie's late-in-life attempt at reconciliation. Carnegie and Frick, in Standiford's estimation, represented all that was good and bad in American capitalism. They were self-made men, rising from blue-collar backgrounds to become titans in the burgeoning American steel industry, some of the wealthiest men in the world, and loyal partners, even if they were always somewhat short of being actual friends. But they were also pivotal figures in the infamous Homestead Steel strike, where Frick, acting on implicit orders from Carnegie, dispatched hundreds of private security guards into a testy labor situation, resulting in mayhem and death on all sides and forever casting a pall over the history of American labor relations. While Carnegie and Frick's acumen in getting rich is given due credit, Standiford also tells of the workers who were exploited or killed in that same effort. Standiford presents Carnegie and Frick without prejudice, demonstrating their fierce competitiveness, short tempers, business savvy, and troublesome character flaws. The reader also comes to realize that, although there were some negligible differences, the two men are so similar and so powerful that a falling out was inevitable. Meet You in Hell is a valuable insight into the ideas and personalities that shaped American industrialization as well as an interesting parallel to a contemporary economic reality where American jobs, particularly in the manufacturing sector, are threatened and often lost to overseas labor. --John Moe...