Introduction
Part One: The Farm Boy
1. Origins
2. Starting Up
3. Founding Ford
4. Growing Successes
5. Growing Pains
6. Model T Mania
7. Fordism
8. The $5 Day
Part Two: The Forward March
9. Alone at the Top
10. Making an Impact
11. Challenging Every Foe
12. Withstanding the Downturn
13. The Rouge
14. Lincoln Motor
15. Ford Aviation
Part Three: The Battle Joined
16. Good-bye, Model T; Hello, Model A
17. Model A and Trade Abroad
18. Coping with the Great Depression
19. Model Y: The Ford Americans Never Knew
20. For Better and For Worse in Dearborn
21. Mercury
22. Building Up to War
23. Willow Run and the B-24 Liberators
Part Four: The Modern Corporation
24. Peaceful Revolution
25. Death in Dearborn
26. Human Engineering
27. Fifty Years Old and Still Growing Up
28. Grand Thunderbirds, Tough Trucks, and the Edsel Flop
29. A Whole New Business
30. Mustang Generation
Part Five: The Turnaround Years
31. Jet Set
32. Trouble All Around
33. Financial Crisis
34. The Quality Crisis
35. Team Taurus
36. New Horses
37. Momentum
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Douglas Brinkley is a distinguished professor of history and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. His books includeThe Unfinished Presidency- Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House,Rosa Parks- A Life, andTour of Duty- John Kerry and the Vietnam War.
"A comprehensive and briskly paced account of the man, the machines, and the company that dramatically influenced the course of 20th-century America... highly readable and engrossing." —BusinessWeek"[A] comprehensive and highly readable...first rate corporate history." —The New York Times
"A comprehensive and briskly paced account of the man, the machines, and the company that dramatically influenced the course of 20th-century America... highly readable and engrossing." -BusinessWeek"[A] comprehensive and highly readable...first rate corporate history." -The New York Times
Two other histories of Ford are slated for publication this year; four were published last year. Brinkley, a University of New Orleans history professor, distinguishes his as the only "single volume business and social history of Ford Motor from 1903 to 2003." In fact, it's something different: a book about the people of Ford, including the Ford family, executives, workers, union organizers and others. Extensive new documentary materials tell Ford's story in the words of its people. Brinkley's focus never strays far from Ford plants in Highland Park, River Rouge and Willow Run, Mich., yet he reflects events taking place in the outside world through the actions and feelings of people in nearby Dearborn, Mich. This does for 20th-century history what Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 did for the prior era: relate world events from a fixed perspective on a human scale. For example, Brinkley infuses a discussion of Ford's design shift in the late 1950s with Henry Ford II's scandalous (for the time) pursuit of his European mistress. And he mentions the Korean War because it led to government-imposed production controls that prevented Ford from surpassing Chrysler in sales. Readers interested in the history of the Ford Motor Company can find accounts better-written (Robert Lacey's Ford: The Men and the Machine) and more authoritative (Allan Nevins's Ford, Companies and Men), but will value this book for its new details and quotes. For general readers, it's a fascinating epic saga of ordinary and extraordinary people who built a great company. (On sale Apr. 28) Forecast: The aforementioned books on Ford are out of print, so Brinkley's book could appeal to a new generation of business history readers. A plug from Robert Caro will help, too. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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