Rating: 
Summary: Mechanization of the world picture
Review: As the author notes the history of corporations is often neglected. This account of the primordial emergence of Ford and his 'jalopy', man and corporation, tells the history of an age, and is worth following in slow motion even if we know the gist already. Ford himself is a puzzle, and the contradictions seen in the later shadowy side visible in the cockeyed stupidity of his antisemitism leave a mystery figure for the record. The younger Ford with his audacious $5/day seems a man of uncommon sense and this belies the image of the cliched capitalist and it is sad to see how the System closes in on him in the end. A classic saga well told.
Rating:
Summary: How a Car Company Can be a Founding Father
Review: David Brinkley's astounding history of Ford Motor Company is in many ways a history of US industrialism and the essential role it played in powering the "American Century." It can be endlessly argued whether Henry Ford was a brilliant visionary or just in the right place at the right time. But the fact remains that, more than any other individual, Ford turned the crank that started the machinery of mass production. Brinkley's masterfully-written history illustrates how Ford's farsighted approach to high wages and economies-of-scale sparked a self-sustaining explosion of economic growth, leaving America second to none in its productive capacity. Wheels For the World is far more than a book about cars; it's about economics, politics, labor relations, war, racism, corporate intrigue, executive ego, near bankruptcy, and eventual rebirth; it is about a people's faith in themselves and their ability to overcome all obstacles no matter how insurmountable they seem. In the end, Wheels For the World is as much about America as any single book you will ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: An endurance test
Review: Douglas Brinkley was given access to the Ford Motor Co. archives, and he seems bent on including everything he found there. This book is 764 pages long and it took me three weeks to read. Yet, I can't say it was a wasted effort.
Henry Ford is the undisputed star. Brinkley spends pages trying to decide whether old Henry was a genius or just a excellent judge of character. He finally arrives at a compromise of sorts: Ford would not have succeeded without James Couzens, his business manager; Charles Sorenson, production manager, or C. Harold Wills, his chief designer. But it was Henry Ford's vision and will power that held everything together. He was also a genius at promotion (sometimes self promotion).
Brinkley does not shirk in his criticism of Ford's warts. Much of the book is devoted to Ford's anti-Semitism. On the other hand, he's quick to tell us of Ford's devotion to African American workers and his financing of Ford Hospital and social programs for his immigrant workers.
Although he's ambivalent about Henry Ford, Brinkley loves Edsel and Henry II. Brinkley's Edsel is an urbane and sophisticated man whom the author gives credit for the development of the Lincoln Continental and other styling at Ford. He also debunks the notion that Henry Ford contributed to Edsel's early death. Henry II is shown as an empathetic man who worked hand-in-hand with Walter Reuther's UAW to improve employee/employer relations.
Up until reading this book, I couldn't tell a Ford Taurus from a Ford Tempo, but I have to say that lately I've been paying more attention and, yes, the Tempo does look rather like a jellybean.
Rating:
Summary: An Admirable Attempt at the History of an Enigma
Review: Henry Ford was an enigma, and he remains one despite more than 850 pages of text in this fine history of the man and his company. Douglas Brinkley offers a court history of breadth and scope, relying on the rarely accessible Ford Motor Company archives to flesh out stories of the birth of the assembly line, the Model T, union busting in the 1930s, anti-Semitism, and successes with the Mustang, LTD, and Taurus.Throughout "Wheels for the World" Henry Ford is the force that creates and holds a corporate empire together. Brinkley devotes the first two-thirds of the book to him, exploring the paradoxes in his psyche: a self-taught engineer who created a corporate empire, a high minded entrepreneur in the mold of Robert Owen at one time and an anti-union zealot at another, and a man who used his wealth and power to spout ill-informed and sometimes demagogic ideas. Brinkley's final assessment is well-reasoned and enigmatic.
Rating: 
Summary: Wheels For The World: A Flat Tire
Review: I am bitterly disappointed with Douglas Brinkley's history of the Ford Motor Company, "Wheels For The World".
By way of background, my 84 year-old father worked for Ford Motor his entire life, starting at the Henry Ford Trade School in 1933 as a student and retiring as divisional manager in 1980. I worked for the Company during college summers as a vacation replacement secretary and later in Ford's Marketing Division.
What's wrong with the Brinkley book? It's sloppy. Whoever researched the quotes from long-time executives, like L.E. Briggs, the company's treasurer in the 1940s and 1950s, apparently didn't have the inclination to check company payroll records and give this person a first name -- "Leon" in this case -- or any substantive background so that the reader can better understand the context of his quotes.
It's sloppy in that instead of doing primary research by interviewing all of the living Whiz Kids, Brinkley only interviews the most prominent. He refers to other published works on the Whiz Kids for the majority of his information.
Many key retired executives at the rank of executive vice-president or higher, still living, who would have given this book the analysis and substance it lacks are noticeably missing.
Other people quoted in the book -- like Max Jurosek, who worked with my dad -- aren't listed in the index.
J. Edward Lundy's significant role in developing the Company's first professional finance staff -- that served as a prototype for most American corporations post-World War II -- isn't mentioned at all, nor are the effects of this development. Other important episodes in the Company's history are missing -- like the tampering of pollution control devices during EPA testing in Nevada in the 1970s, as well as payment of illegal monies to foreign governments during this period and the ramifications of those actions.
This is definitely not in the same class as the three-volume Allan Nevins-Frank Hill history of the Company, which ends in 1962. Brinkley's book is lacking any creative synthesis of information at hand. It lacks heart or soul. No wonder it's not on the best seller lists in Detroit.
The definitive work on Ford Motor, particularly post-1962, is still waiting to be written.
Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: I found no mention of Harry Ferguson, the Ford-Ferguson tractor(perhaps the most significant agricultural tractor of the Twentieth Century), or subsequent tractor work by Ford. There was no mention of Dearborn Motors, nor its significance to the Company.
Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: I found no mention of Harry Ferguson, the Ford-Ferguson tractor(perhaps the most significant agricultural tractor of the Twentieth Century), or subsequent tractor work by Ford. There was no mention of Dearborn Motors, nor its significance to the Company.
Rating:
Summary: This is book is worth your time!
Review: I have always been a history buff. However, I bought this book on a hunch that I might like it. I have never really had any interest in the automobile industry. This book has changed that...the book is a great review of the last century in general. The book has been a super read for me!
Rating:
Summary: This is book is worth your time!
Review: I have always been a history buff. However, I bought this book on a hunch that I might like it. I have never really had any interest in the automobile industry. This book has changed that...the book is a great review of the last century in general. The book has been a super read for me!
Rating:
Summary: All (and I do mean ALL) About Henry
Review: I've been a fan of Brinkley's books for a while now, but I was amazed by his latest, richest effort, and not just because I was already fascinated with Henry Ford and his empire. I don't think I've ever read a biography/modern history so believable, illuminating, and so chockablock with fascinating detail. How did he find all of this?! If you're at all interested in Ford, cars, or American history, snap this one up.
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