Customer Reviews

Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of Two Unique Men, a Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time in American History

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In this book you'll find eccentrics, misfits and geniuses who made and lost fortunes, founded and lost companies, gained brief fame and were eventually forgotten by just about everyone except automotive industry historians. Although the book purports to focus on Billy Durant, Alfred Sloan and General Motors, its scope is actually much wider, since the evolution of the automobile industry exemplifies the evolution of U.S. industries in general. We recommend this lively, readable saga to history buffs and managers. It is a highly instructive take on the parallels between boom and bust in the car industry of the 1910s and in the high-tech industry of the 1990s.

In a week when the Nissan-Renault partnership has made a suggestion of parterning with or buying out or merging with General Motors, this book makes a timely read.

Here is the story of the men who founded the company, Sloan and Durant. They were big dreamers, held a vision of the future, and seemed to have a basic understanding of where their company and the automobile industry was going.

I don't know who's in charge at GM now, but it appears that they aren't managing the company to the standard that such an icon of business should be held. Quite likely they are financial people, very knowledgable in making the company profitable this quarter (that's 'this quarter' a few years ago), but ignoring things like fuel efficiency to keep building SUVs (great profits for 'this quarter').

In their day Durant and Sloan managed through a whole series of problems. It's interesting to think about how they might have handled today's problems. The book presents a view of a time when perhaps management could make changes, when the company, the union, and the economy was different.

This is a very fine book and very accurate accounting that went on back then. I have read all the other books on Mr. Durant and Sloans own book and find this a must read. This book also has 12 pages of great glossy pictures in it. Durant has been dead now for 59 years and they are still writing about him. One of the greatest automobile men to have lived and the most historic with him starting GM and Chevrolet. List price is 27.95 and now only $8.40 on Amozon.com. Brand new book just out here in 2006. Lance Haynes President Durant Motors Automobile Club San Diego, Ca.

An excellent book in order and fact. Billy's business acumen, sometimes wreckless, proved to be in common with Alfred's sharp feel for detail, a winning combination of the two men which sustained General Motors in excellence for generations.

Very impressive journalistic skills on the part of the author, well researched. The result of scouring memoires, minutes of meetings, company archives, and where records did not exist actually contacting board members still alive from that era.
The author compares the dawning of the automobile era to the late dotcom era, and the similarities are striking. A time when new commercial ventures bring out maverick geniuses, creating and managing by intuition. Some were destined to win big, and the book shows how over time an enterprise matures and settles for leadership from financial and managerial professionals. This book provides a Who's Who of movers and shakers in the beginning of the 20th century, the Morgan's and the DuPont's seeking financial security and investment returns versus a host of entrepreneurs. This book tells the beginnings of what would later be common names across the U.S. Names such as Cadillac, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Delco, and includes short biographies of Walter Chrysler, the Dodge Brothers and of course the famous ringleader, Billy Durant. Billy Durant was the man who conceived General Motors, later ousted by GM's Board of Directors during an economic downturn. Undaunted Billy Durant started Chevrolet and leveraged that corporation to win back control of GM only to lose it again to professional management teams. The book covers the time period when the different divisions of GM had different corporate cultures, and the philosophy of forming a vertical corporation was paramount.
Many readers that work for large corporations will see practices and management initially formed by GM management has affected and been adopted by most every large corporation in the world. This book should be read by every Business major for the lessons it provides.

I love the book. I am about half way through and it has captured my attention more than I thought a documentary type book could. I am very impressed and I think it will give me a new perspective on the company that has also shaped my life and career.

This is an absolute must read for anyone that works in the corporate world. If you work in the auto industry it should be required reading.

As Far How it was managed, About Billy Durant and How Brilliant he was, and Alfred Sloan As well(Of Course how Shrewd he was and straight to the point). The Battles, The Stuffy Bankers who tried to Control GM,(JPMorgan), The Duponts, etc. Must Read!

This is a pretty good book, and gives basic knowledge about how GM was formed. This is one of the few books on the market that you can talk about when someone is purchasing a car, and the history of the company is different than I had expected. The book focused most of the attention on Billy Durant, instead of Alfred Sloan, which in turn made the title more interesting. It is a good story about how one mans drive can change the world as we know it, and it can also ruin him. I would recommend this book to a friend or relitive. But it gets a bit hard to hang in there for the last chapter or so (at least I thought so).

Are the other reviewers here reading the same book I am, or are they friends of the author? The poor quality of this book is too glaring to avoid. An honest reader has to wonder if it is self-published. (OK, AMACOM appears not to be a vanity press, but a Scribners it ain't.)

Pelfrey is sometimes good at narrative, but after doing his cut-and-paste work, did he bother to read the finished product? We are ceaselessly flailed with redundant information. How many times do we need to know that Alfred Sloan's memoir was ghostwritten by a committee of 20? How many times do we need to know of Billy Durant's mother's Mayflower connection? How many times do we need to be told that Durant was a strong supporter of Prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment? How many times do we need it driven home that Billy Durant was mercurial and that Alfred Sloan was stolid? How many times do we need reminding that General Motors became the greatest enterprise in corporate history? All of this is repeated as if for the first time. And all of this in the first 30 pages!

Is this just sloppy or non-existent editing, or is it padding? For no apparent reason, where we would expect a series of sentences heading paragraphs, we are given a bulleted list. Since when does a book that "reads like a novel" have bulleted lists?

I keep hoping that the repetition will taper off, that I'll no longer be subjected to gratuitously sensationalistic passages like, "Raised by a socialite divorcee in an era when single mothers were scorned," or awkward transitions like "...Durant was high on the list of Flint's most elegible bachelors. He married Clara Pitt...." I hope the story of Durant's first job, in his family's lumberyard, which Pelfrey (or rather the source he quotes) begins in intimate detail, will be rescued from the oblivion to which it's assigned a paragraph later. But I won't hold my breath.

I suggest that, instead of heeding the misleading reviews here, you catch the author's talk on BookTv. It tells you everything the book does, but mercifully only once.

Billy Durant, what a man, not only a visionary with amazing ablities, but one who believe in the worth of the common man.

Where would Nash, Chevrolet, the Dodges , Chrysler , the Leland's, the DuPont's and yes Sloan, who was disloyal and stabbed him in the back without Billy Durant?

This book proves the established fact of business, that bankers, both direct and investment, stock sellers and so call money people can't built anything for all their money.

A great book on American business.

JRP