4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Packed with Knowledge!, 1 Mar 2004
This review is from: Wheels for the World: Henry Fo (Hardcover)
It would be difficult to conceive of a more detailed corporate history. Author Douglas Brinkley offers an interesting, lucid narrative of Henry Ford’s early experiments with the automobile, and his first, unsuccessful companies. He promises and delivers a “warts and all” picture of Ford’s history. Brinkley is at his strongest discussing Ford’s origins. But the book is also sprawling, diffuse and unfocused, with a somewhat confusing tendency to jump back and forth along the twentieth century timeline. It is more than a biography of Henry Ford, but less than a thorough history of the Ford Motor Company. The author nods in the direction of the technological, managerial and financial forces that have shaped Ford since the 1950s, though he presents Ford’s (both man and company) earlier history in vivid detail. The impact of what Henry Ford did and how he did it still shapes industry in the United States. We recommend Brinkley’s book for its revealing picture of one of the twentieth century’s most influential industrialists.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Ilustration of the significance of Ford, 10 Jan 2010
Full of facts and figures about Ford and his contribution to the prosperity of America in the 20th century. It shows how Henry Ford contributed in polictics, farming, and obviosuly the car industry.
Perfect book to find out the positive side of Henry Ford although another may be needed if you want to develop an arguement as there are hardly any negative aspects in the book. Still worth the read
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Starts off well but runs out of steam, 29 April 2007
An excellent start to the book in a biography of Henry Ford and how he came to be involved in automobiles and the founding of the Ford company.
From the 1900s to the 1930s the book described how the automobile industry and Ford grew. The growth of the industry is nicley tied in with the social and tecnological developments in the US, how that affected the industry and how the industry (and Henry Ford himself) affected the US. Very good reading.
However, the final 2/3 of the book is fairly unsatisfying to read. Much of it consists of details of the politics of the company, CEOs, whos who and a fair bit of fairly unrelated waffle. You wonder if Ford actually built cars during a large part of the history, since theres very little mention of the cars being built. Furthermore, the book begins to read more like a lot of little newspaper snippets and documents all thrown into one. This results in a fairly poor flow in the storyline and a lot of sidetracks and unrelated and dull information.
A whole chapter on "Quality Crisis" contains mostly details of negotiating of pay with the unions. A missed oppourtunity for what could have been an interesting subject.
Its also worth noting that apart from Henry Ford's early experiments with automobiles, there is almost no detail on technology developments or details of the cars that were made during the history of Ford. You will be lucky to hear of a model name, and rarely will you be told of engine layout or styling and never of engine size, or any devlelopments the vehicle had.
Its still worth the read for the excellent first part of the book but be prepared for some page skipping after that.
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