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Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress

Douglas G. Brinkley

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Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Avg. Customer Rating: 4 Stars

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Product Description: In this monumental work, one of our finest historians reveals the riveting details of Ford Motor Company’s epic achievements, from the outlandish success of the Model T and V-8 to the glory days of the Thunderbird, Mustang, and Taurus. Brilliant innovators, colorful businessmen, and clever eccentrics, as well as the three Ford factories themselves, all become characters in this gripping drama. Douglas Brinkley is a master at crafting compelling historical narratives, and this exemplary history of one of the preeminent American corporations is his finest achievement yet.

Amazon.com Review: In conjunction with its 100th anniversary, the Ford Motor Company opened its monumental archives to the unfettered research of author/historian Douglas Brinkley. And while the 800-page history that resulted from that work (as well as Brinkley's tireless, amply footnoted source work elsewhere) is comprehensive to a fault, the scope and enduring impact of the industrial colossus wrought by Henry Ford make it often seem like mere introduction. Brinkley's meticulous, enlightened work can't help but find endless fascination with the company's founder, whose presence resonates through every phase of the company's history, from its fitful start (FMC was the third company to bear the Ford name), through the rise of the Model T (still one of the most ubiquitous and revolutionary mechanical contrivances of the last millennia), to its cycles of corporate decay and rebirth (variously via Iacocca's Mustang in the 60's and the technical innovations and potent retrenchment of trans-nationalism in the 90's). Henry Ford remains one of the greatest human paradoxes in a century filled with them: a largely self-taught engineer who couldn't read a blueprint, yet became a mass-production visionary; an employer whose social conscience (and no small amount of shrewd business acumen) doubled the salary of his employees one era, employed thugs to crush their union organizing efforts the next; a world figure who read little, yet published much, including anti-war editorials and vile, anti-Semitic tracts--despite the fact that his monumental manufacturing facilities were designed by Jews whose friendship and professional relationships he cultivated. The enviro-social impact of Ford's industrial innovations continues to loom, and Brinkley hardly ignores them. But his research is largely focused on the rich players (and their often perplexing psychology) of the Ford saga, all-too-human characters whose ambitious empire will continue to cast its long shadows over many a generation to come. --Jerry McCulley

Paperback: 880 pages
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ISBN: 0142004391
Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.7 inches
Weight: 1.65 pounds
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Customer Reviews

Great early Ford history: Avg. Customer Rating: 4 Stars; I liked this book a lot and obviously a substantial amount of energy was put into research.
One thing though.......it is so comprehensive up to Henry's death, and then little is left for the days of HenryII et al. So, my remark is what about the exciting post-war years and then the present? The old 3 volume Nevins book covers this more thoroughly.At least until 1962.
So, I want suggestions about a Ford history through the Iaccoca years til now. Yes, we know he built the Mustang, but Henry built the Model T and a lot more was written about him. Will have to do a search for Hank the Deuce material too.
And I leave it at that.....should have been called a half century of progress
Quality Ford corporate history: Avg. Customer Rating: 4 Stars; Excellent corporate history of Ford Motor Company, and unavoidably, a biography of Henry Ford, who for the first 45 years of the company was Ford Motor Company.

The chaotic early years of the automotive industry are captured in the two failed car companies Ford left behind, including the Henry Ford Company which was taken over by Henry Leland and renamed Cadillac (the first Cadillac was a Ford design!), and in the thought processes of Henry Ford thinking and planning for a million cars per year while other car makers were building a thousand cars per year.

Ford loses a little of his luster in this book, as we learn that he was rabidly anti-Semitic, belittled his son Edsel even as he made him president of the company, and had very little to do with engineering and production of the cars that carried his name around the world.

But we also learn that his genius lay in constantly pushing for improving processes and reducing cost and thus price so that the automobile could become affordable to Everyman--a process that shaped the 20th century and reshaped history. We learn that black was the only color option for the Model T because the black paint dried faster and thus enabled shorter production time, and that while the Model T was produced almost unchanged for 20 years, the processes that produced the Model T changed almost literally every single day (according to the book, every day of production at least one machine on the Model T production line was added or modified).

Overall well-done social and technical history that explains and frames Ford in context, and doesn't detract from the pride of ownership of Ford products.
A Sponsored History: Avg. Customer Rating: 4 Stars; Douglas Brinkley has convinced me that you can at once be sponsored by a corporation to do its history AND not fawn over the organization AND write readably.

Someone else here descreibed the book as an "endurance test." I would not agree...I thought the book, though long, was well-organized, well-paced and easy to maintain reader interest.

Henry Ford I is the centerpiece, all right, but I especially enjoyed Brinkley's insights into the much more private, even reticent, Edsel Ford. Edsel really saved the company during the late 20s and then the depression, but is largely forgotten for his role. Henry's crazed desire for control caused him to embarass and berate his only son at every opportunity. Edsel died relatively young; in fact, Henry outlived him.

What is it we want out of life? Of we want our lives to make a difference, then Henry was an unqualified success. Self promotion aside, Henry changed the whole world more than any other single figure of the twentieth century - and did so despite glaring personal inadequacies and near-fatal quirks. When he was wrong, he was incredibly adamantly and brutally wrong.

"Never complain, never explain." Henry I didn't say it, but his grandson Henry II did - and Henry II led the company through its time of turnaround, unprecedented growth and earnings in the 1980s. A great book!
The story of Ford, from Henry to Bill: Avg. Customer Rating: 5 Stars; Wheels for the World is a captivating look at the Ford Motor Company from its earliest conception to the present day. Douglas Brinkley, being granted unrivalled access to Ford's archives, takes the reader back to the beginning of Henry Ford's youth onwards to the incorporation of the Ford Motor Company to today. The richness and detail Brinkley provides is what sets this apart from other historical biographical works. And in a sense, this is what the book is, a biographical look at Henry Ford and his family with a historical look at the company. Brinkley brings to life so many different characters that brought profound changes to Ford that have long since been forgotten today. People such as Alex Malcomson (who provided the finances in the creation of the final iteration of Ford), James Couzens (the financial and administrative wizard in the early days who created a corporate structure from scratch), and many others are all covered in-depth in this book as well as the main players such as Sorensen and Iacocca. He also covers different aspects of Ford such as the creation of Ford's Aviation Department and the positive relationship he had with African-Americans. Neither does Brinkley whitewash the controversies Henry Ford nor the Ford Company stirred in their day (from anti-Semitism to the Pinto debacle). However, there are a few issues with this book. Although overall very detailed and encompassing, after the passing of Henry Ford, the book begins to accelerate through the companies' history. This is especially profound after the retirement of Henry Ford II where Brinkley rushes through 2 decades until he reaches the inauguration of William Clay Ford Jr. and then proceeds to faun over him as if he were a great saviour (which even today we still don't know). Although not an extreme problem, it does unfortunately not tie in as well with the rest of the books fascinating details and perspectives. One feels that Brinkley was growing tired of writing (and it is quite the read at 764 pages) and wanted to speed things up a little so he could wrap up sooner. All told though, this nagging detail is not enough to negatively affect Brinkley's work. Wonderfully written and full of details, Brinkley's book may literally be one of the last books you may ever need to read on Henry Ford and his company.
Henry Ford & Ford Motor -- what a story!: Avg. Customer Rating: 5 Stars; Last year, I read a book about Henry Ford and his anti-Semitism. At that time, I had a very narrow view about the man - I wish now that I had read this book, Douglas Brinkley's study of Ford and his company, before I had read that one.

Brinkley's mammoth volume on this one man and the company he created is a tremendous addition to American business history. Brinkely gives us a comprehensive study (about half of the book) of Henry Ford the man and how he created the Ford Motor Company. This segment of the book really gave me a new respect for the man as an innovator and an idealist, though his engineering skills were apparently lacking (at one point Brinkley tells his audience that Ford couldn't even read a blueprint). Brinkley intertwines the story of Henry's son Edsel, who was given the unenviable task of running Ford Motor while Henry was still alive and wouldn't release control over some of the day-to-day operations.

After seeing Edsel die an untimely death, we see Ford Motor transition to Henry II. This is the first time that Henry Sr. relinquishes some control, and we see what the company can do (and does) during this period. Brinkley vividly tells the story of Henry II and his interactions with the labor movement in conjunction with operations at Ford Motor.

Towards the end of the book, we see the post Henry II era. We see a couple of different CEO's, including Donald Peterson, who seemed to help the company, and Jac Nasser, who probably isn't missed much by the Ford family - his reign saw the depletion of massive cash reserves from the corporation. At the conclusion of the book, Brinkley shows us the path that the company is taking today under the leadership of Bill Ford, Jr.

I believe that Brinkley has given us a wonderful book here - telling us the story not just of a man or a company, but a combination of so many facets of American history. What made Henry Ford tick? Why did he create Ford Motor Company? What did he do to make it survive? How did Ford Motor Company impact Michigan and America as a whole? All of these questions, and so many more, are answered in this splendid book. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a strong understanding of how one man and the business he built can have such a tremendous impact on America and the rest of the world.

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