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The two men could not have been more different.
One was the consummate salesman, a brilliant wheeler-dealer
with grand plans, unflappable energy, and a fondness for
the high life. The other was the educated intellectual,
an expert in business strategy and management, master of
all things organizational. And yet the impact of this odd
couple on the industrial and societal landscapes of the
early twentieth century is equaled only by the indelible
legacy of their improbable partnership.
Billy Durant and Alfred Sloan built perhaps
the most successful enterprise in U.S. history, General
Motors. With GM's ascent grew an industry whose product
has come to symbolize the very essence of modernity throughout
the world. Billy, Alfred, and General Motors is the
tale not just of its title characters, but also of the formative
decades of twentieth-century America, through two world
wars and sea changes in nearly every facet of daily life,
from business and industry to politics and culture.
Painstakingly and passionately researched,
the book sheds new light on how the divergent approaches
of Durant and Sloan were destined to forge an entirely new
business archetype, one that would become (and today remains)
a global standard. As author William Pelfrey explains, GM's
history, whether it is to be emulated or shunned, resonates
with all modern business:
"Today, the corporate world is typified
more than ever by acquisitions, integration, and constant
consolidation, a process that Billy Durant mastered... At
the same time, business theorists, executives, and investors
alike are questioning whether the structures and policies
established by Alfred Sloan have become barriers... Leaders
in all kinds and sizes of companies are attempting to redefine
their enterprises in a world far more complex, interdependent,
and uncertain than either Billy or Alfred could have imagined."
Billy, Alfred, and General Motors includes
vivid warts-and-all portraits of the legends of the golden
age of the automobile, including:
- Henry Ford, an unabashed hatemonger
who alienated almost every executive he ever worked with.
- Ransom Olds, the first to recognize
mass production as the future of the automobile.
- Charles Nash, a farm laborer from
age six who rose to the upper echelons of GM production
and ultimately became president of the company.
- David Dunbar Buick, a brilliant
innovator but a troubled man who died in poverty and obscurity.
- Henry Leland, the founder of Cadillac,
who "accepted no excuses and suffered no fools,"
and imposed almost impossibly high standards.
- Walter Chrysler, a whiz from the
railroad industry who likened locomotive manufacturing
to the "creative joy that only poets are supposed
to know."
With a journalist's immediacy and a novelist's
pace and sweep, Pelfrey brings to life an extraordinary
period in history, uniquely American in its by-the-bootstraps
ethos, but universal in its permanent and profound implications.
William Pelfrey (Beverly Hills, MI) is
a veteran US Foreign Service Officer and former director
of executive communications for General Motors Corporation,
where he was also speechwriter and public relations counselor
for the CEO and chairman of the board. Before entering public
service and then the corporate world, he reported from Vietnam,
Appalachia, and Pakistan for The New York Times, The Atlantic
Monthly, and The New Republic. His first book, The Big V,
was the first Vietnam war novel written by a combat infantryman.
It was nominated for the National Book Award and won him
a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. He also wrote
the novelization of the film Hamburger Hill.
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