Rating: 
Summary: Whoops!
Review: As always with David Halberstam, this book is a monument to relentless reporting - he must surely be the most energetic reporter of our times. It presents vivid pictures of the insides of Ford and Nissan, with an eye toward developing his main theme: that America really blew it, that the Japanese are gonna take over, that the American economy is going down the tubes. Too bad that entire theme is ridiculously wrong. The book came out in 1986, just as the American economy was gearing up to reinvent itself, as it had many times before, and as it will many times again. As a history of the car industry, the book is dandy; as another of Halberstam's attempts to explain the world, it's an exercise in hubris.
Rating:
Summary: A Car Book by a Non-Car Guy
Review: As always, David Halbestam's reporting does not disappoint. It's true that the world has turned upside down since 1986 --- but that's partly because the hubris is now on the other foot, so to speak. Ford is enjoying record profits, while Nissan suffers through Japan's continuing economic doldrums.That said, the book is often annoying and even more often comical in its display of Halberstam's ignorance of the automobile world. Just three examples --- He uses the term "sticker price" in connection with the Mustang. The government had not yet ordained stickers in 1964. He calls a rare old make the G0-Go-Mobile; it's Gogomobile, even in its topless version. He tells us the cost of Kaiser's engine assembly line. Kaiser never built any engines; it bought them from Continental. Still, a remarkable history that reads like a novel. Non-auto buffs won't even notice the gaffes.
Rating: 
Summary: Still relevant history
Review: I read a borrowed copy of this book over a decade ago and it has proven memorable and useful. Memorable because 12 years after reading it, I still vividly recall many episodes: for example, we read of the American engineer and his wife who took Japanese citizenship during WWII because all their friends were Japanese, but still sent their sons back to the US; Halberstam writes of the president of Nissan's US branch (Datsun) who incredibly had enough strength of character to rename Datsun's new sportscar the Z80 (in North America) from the FairLady (in Japan) against the CEO's wishes; Ford's dismal accounting practices of the early 20th century when all invoices were put in a pile and weighed (!) to estimate how much cash was required in the checking account; and most rewarding of all, the story of Professor Deming, the American inventor of modern quality control, arrogantly overlooked in his homeland and treated as an oracle of wisdom in industrial Japan. I also found the Reckoning useful, because for the fifteen years I've lived in Japan I've relied and built upon the insights it gave me. David Halberstam presents an accurate evaluation of how Japanese business often works, especially manufacturing businesses. Halberstam doesn't advocate following Japanese practices, he merely presents them and evaluates their success. Sometimes these practices can be applied, and sometimes they can't. Japanese office practices work well in Japan because they rely on local customs. For example, the reason Deming found a voice in Japan is that a Tokyo University professor took notice of his work and called several old students who were now executives in Japan's car industry. They invited Deming and listened to his lectures. It's a characteristic of Japanese society that teachers retain some authority over their students for their entire lives, not only for the year they spend teaching them. This would not have worked in the West. However, once the value of Deming's work was obvious American car companies studied and implemented them, even if late. The lesson is that while Deming's methods can work as well for U.S. car makers as for Japanese, the politics of getting them accepted depend entirely on local conditions. Japanese car men were open, and sincerely enthusiastic, of listening to their old professor's ideas, while American car men needed failure to humble them enough to change their ways.
Rating:
Summary: Required reading - DON'T MISS IT
Review: I work in the automotive industry and I find Halberstam's work to be absolute required reading. The book chronicles the history of the Ford Motor Company and the Nissan Motor Company, comparing and contrasting their vastly different methods for reaching the same goals. In his typical style, Halberstam writes this history like a novel, spinning fascinating stories about Ford Motor Company's infamous union-busting "Service Department" and the effects of American occupation in Japan follwing World War II. Some reviewers have negatively commented on Halberstam's implication that Ford was near death in 1986, but he was right on the money. We have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and know that Ford is once again successful and Nissan was very near complete failure. But, if Ford had not succeeded with the Taurus (which at the time of publication was an unnamed concept) there is a good possiblity the lights in Dearborn may have been turned out forever. An outstanding chronicle of American and Japanese business in the dark days.
Rating: 
Summary: Right...then wrong...now right again (sort of)
Review: I'll start off with the caveat that I believe David Halberstam is America's finest living writer. "The Reckoning" ranks in the middle-tier of Halberstam's body of work, only because it hasn't aged as well as a classic like "The Best and the Brightest." Halberstam's 'big concept' here is as follows: Beginning of car industry: Ford (and U.S.) - Good! Nissan (and Japan) - Flat on their backs or making scooters, lawnmowers, surviving WWII, etc.
----- In the 50s and 60s: Ford / US - Good! (but overconfident, cocky, arrogant) Nissan (then Datsun) / Japan - Bad (making cars on equivalence with cheap transitor radios)
----- By mid-80s (the book was published in 86): Ford (as proxy for US economic model) - Bad! (Hubris brings great fall, etc.) Nissan (as proxy for Japanese economic model) - Good! (Height of Japanese bubble economy and 'The Japan that Can Say No')
----- By mid-90s (Book starts to look very dated): Ford - Ascendant! (tenures of Red Poling, Alex Trotman put Ford back on top) Nissan - Collapsed! (popping of Japanese bubble economy; Nissan loses touch with consumers, bleeds red ink)
----- 2002 (Book regains its relevancy): Ford (as proxy for US) - Punch-drunk fighter stumbling around taking an eight-count after brain-dead Jacque Nasser era Nissan (as proxy for Japan) - Firing on all cylinders worldwide thanks to amazing leadership of Carlos Ghosn
----- It is worth noting that contrary to Halberstam's premise, Nissan is succeeding *despite* the Japanese model, not because of it. [Ghosn's real success has been his attack against long-held Japanese core principles such as guaranteed lifetime employment.] What would be great would be a re-release of 'The Reckoning' with about a 75- to 100-page update by Halberstam bringing the events of the last 16 years into focus vis-a-vis the original premise of his 1986 publication.
Rating:
Summary: Right...then wrong...now right again (sort of)
Review: I'll start off with the caveat that I believe David Halberstam is America's finest living writer. "The Reckoning" ranks in the middle-tier of Halberstam's body of work, only because it hasn't aged as well as a classic like "The Best and the Brightest." Halberstam's 'big concept' here is as follows: Beginning of car industry: Ford (and U.S.) - Good! Nissan (and Japan) - Flat on their backs or making scooters, lawnmowers, surviving WWII, etc.
----- In the 50s and 60s: Ford / US - Good! (but overconfident, cocky, arrogant) Nissan (then Datsun) / Japan - Bad (making cars on equivalence with cheap transitor radios)
----- By mid-80s (the book was published in 86): Ford (as proxy for US economic model) - Bad! (Hubris brings great fall, etc.) Nissan (as proxy for Japanese economic model) - Good! (Height of Japanese bubble economy and 'The Japan that Can Say No')
----- By mid-90s (Book starts to look very dated): Ford - Ascendant! (tenures of Red Poling, Alex Trotman put Ford back on top) Nissan - Collapsed! (popping of Japanese bubble economy; Nissan loses touch with consumers, bleeds red ink)
----- 2002 (Book regains its relevancy): Ford (as proxy for US) - Punch-drunk fighter stumbling around taking an eight-count after brain-dead Jacque Nasser era Nissan (as proxy for Japan) - Firing on all cylinders worldwide thanks to amazing leadership of Carlos Ghosn
----- It is worth noting that contrary to Halberstam's premise, Nissan is succeeding *despite* the Japanese model, not because of it. [Ghosn's real success has been his attack against long-held Japanese core principles such as guaranteed lifetime employment.] What would be great would be a re-release of 'The Reckoning' with about a 75- to 100-page update by Halberstam bringing the events of the last 16 years into focus vis-a-vis the original premise of his 1986 publication.
Rating:
Summary: Still true after all these years
Review: Some people below have said that while Halberstam was right in 1986, things have since changed with the American auto industry. I have to disagree. While American cars are better than they were in the 1970s and early 80s (could they get any worse?), they are still vastly inferior to Japanese and German cars, and the main reason American manufacturers aren't even worse off than they are has more to do with aggresssive accounting (0% financing, 0 money down) and marketing (fleet sales, rentals) than about attracting new, loyal, lifetime buyers. (Just as people used to buy Fords as their first cars and then as they became older and more affluent moved on to GM, people now buy American cars first and then step up to Toyotas, Acuras, Audis and BMWs.) American automakers haven't learned--not much anyway. It's true, however, that since this book was written, the Japanese have made many of the same mistakes they once criticized U.S. business for: buying trophy properties, overspending, not facing economic reality. However, through all this, the amazing thing--often overlooked--is their quality has not slipped. They still make excellent cars (and cameras and TVs and stereos and...). Their school kids still do math that fatigue our graduate students. Their factories are still models of efficiency. What's fascinating about this book, though is how it shows the ways culture dictates success and failure. We were not willing to change our ways, even when it was obvious that, by not doing so, we were sacraficing our future. But the same was true of the Japanese for much of Nissan's history. Many of their best ideas--cars with stronger engines, cars with better styling, the Z--were almost accidents rather than planned. Just as with Henry Ford a generation earlier, they thought they could dictate the market. It wasn't true then and it's not true now. Halberstam is a gifted writer, and although he may have been a little snowed at times, seeing the Japanese, as so many did then, as invincible supermen, he still penetrates the mysteries of both U.S. and Japanese big business in ways few other writers ever have. This is a fascinating look behind corporate closed doors--both Asian and American. For that reason alone it is required reading for anyone interested in the business world. And the way Halberstam writes, it is never dull reading, either, even though the book is close to 800 pages.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic Of Narrative Non-Ficton
Review: The Reckoning is not just a book about the car buisiness, or even just business as a whole. Halberstam has written a sprawling book about the human narratives that underpin every business decision, every intercorporate political machination, every glitch in the economic movement of the world. The book is as close to a novel as non-fiction can get. The characters are sharply drawn and grandly realized. Business decisions, board meetings, and car manufacturing descriptions are imbued with the crackling writing of good fiction. The style will make you want to read on. As for the subject matter, it isn't just about Ford vs. Nissan, or Japan vs. the US; this book is about people, their failings, prejudices, arrogance, stupidity, short-sightedness, intellect, brilliance, drive, ethics, love, culture, and power. It offers powerful insight into the world of multi-national corporations. If you want to know who's running the world right now and how, this book is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite 10 books, ever
Review: This books works on several levels. It's more than just, Detroit vs. Tokyo, or even, the automotive industry. It's, how to suceed in business by really, really trying. It's also, personalities and quotes, up-by-the-bootstraps business accumen. It's history come alive. It's also, American hubris and where it will get us, it's how can a country with no discernable resources kick our butt, and how a monopoly contains within it the seeds of distruction.
Rating:
Summary: Still relevant after 20 years
Review: This is more than the story and comparison of two companies (Ford and Nissan, respectively the second-largest auto companies in America and Japan) intertwined into a particular period of global history. It is also an insight into the cultures of the corporate mentality in both countries, and the personalities within provide some interesting parallels; from the overbearing Katsuji Kawamata and Lee Iacocca, to the overshadowed visionaries Yutaka Katayama and Don Frey (who, despite Iacocca's claims to that title, was probably the REAL father of the Ford Mustang).
The author's intent was probably to show how Ford prospered in the 1940s to the early 1970s, then fell as it became too large and slow to react to changing economic times, and how Nissan (and the other upstart Japanese companies) in that period rose at Ford's (and General Motor's and Chrysler's) expense. But as the book was ending, in the mid 80s, Ford was on a major upward swing with the then-new Taurus and Sable; for the first time in decades, it would overtake GM in passenger car sales. Meanwhile, Nissan was about to be overtaken as the second-largest Japanese company by Honda. Halberstam also covers the burgeoning threat of the Korean auto industry, whose infancy has since paralleled Japan's to a startling degree. Even if events have made some of this book obsolete (Ford has had several upward- and downward spirals since the mid-1980's, and has since been passed as the world's No. 2 automaker--by Toyota; Nissan flirted with bankrupcy, and has since been purchased by Renault), this is a very fascinating book.
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