No comments about Tycoons and Entrepreneurs (Macmillan Profiles, 2).

No comments about Elusive Rothschild: The Life of Victor, Third Baron.

No comments about Robert Mondavi Of The Napa Valley.

2 comments about Charging Ahead.

1. Joe Sherman has done justice to the fact that we can't always get what we need. He hot only tells the story of James Worden and MIT but delves into the picture of the world oil producers, and the big three, as partners in making things the way they are... for good or ill, is left up to you to determine. Thought prvoking and a fast read, it will leave you with a lot of questions to pursue if you dare, and asking why can't I buy one!



2. This book beautifly outline the trials and tribulations of one of the most advanced solar car companies. Serious information and humor are inter-twined to make this book quick reading and very informative.

No comments about Gerald Ratner: The Rise and Fall...and Rise Again.

4 comments about Thorstein Veblen: Victorian Firebrand.

1. Excerpts from the International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 13 #2, Winter, `99: ``Though not entirely successful in depicting the `essential' Veblen . . . .[this new Veblen biography] is essential reading for students and scholars of Veblen. It cannot replace Dorfman's but it deserves equal billing,'' Clare Virginia Eby. ``Flaws and imperfections notwithstanding . . . . their book has entered the sholarly literature on Thorstein Veblen and will henceforth be obligatory reading for anyone wishing to know him,'' Russell H. Bartley and Sylvia Erickson Bartley.



2. . . . . Stanford alumni Elizabeth and Henry Jorgensen have written a clear, engrossing biography that corrects significant errors in previous accounts, but they can't overcome the central problem, Veblen himself . . . . Veblen returned to Palo Alto in 1927, 18 years after Stanford fired him for supposed "immorality." . . . .the signal achievement of this book (flawed mainly by the Jorgensens' too-brief sketches of Veeblen's thought): demonstrating, once and for all, that Veblen was not an unscrupulous womanizer. Though implausible oin its face, that reputation has gone largely unchallenged for half a century, mostly because Ellen Veblen blackened her husband's name so well.



3. The authors undertook this project because they believed that a man with such cantankerous ideas must have had an interesting life. Those who had written about him before were earnest in their approach but did not convey an appreciation of his unique personality. Now with the current interest in the millenium, there seems to be a Veblen revival. The WALL STREET JOURNAL of January 11, 1999, devoted a full page to fifteen of the ``Best and Brightest Economic Thinkers Who Made a Difference.'' In this Pantheon of those ``who challenged the conventional wisdom'' and whose perceptions ``changed the way millions thought and lived'' were Saint Thomas Aquinas, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, John Maynard Keynes and Thorstein Veblen. Other recent accolades to Veblen are found in Adam Goprik's article in the April 26-May 3, 1999 issue of THE NEW YORKER, and John Carroll's column ``Conspicuous Presumption'' in THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE of May 3, 1999 Alex Beam of THE BOSTON GLOBE in his colum (April 21, 1999) entitled ``The Love Song of Thorstein Veblen'' had this to say about out book: He observed that he was turned off by books that sort of dragged the sex lifes of their subjects in by the heels, and said: ``Not every distinguished man's sex life is worth researching. . . . But Veblen, the enfant terrible of the turn-of-the century economics profession, enjoyed not just an interesting sex life, as his latest biographers Elizabeth and Henry Jorgensen make clear, he enjoyed his life in full. ``There can be no such thing as a dull biography of Veblen, and this one does not disappoint. ``The man who would later anathematize the titans of capital was a cradle contrarian . . . While Sioux marauders were killing fellow Norwegian homesteaders in Minnesota during the 1860s the boy Thorstein sided with the Indians. . . . [He was also] A-religious--- `If there is a difference between religion and magic I have never seen it.' [Thus] Veblen disdained hsi family's prairie Lutheranism and mocked the pieties of America's golden age. ``He was at heart an anthropologist. THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS represents field work among the grandees who sent their children to the universities where he taught, and among his censorious in-laws. . . . His trenchant analysis of what came to be called male chauvinism in his essay, `The Barbarian Status of Women,' made him ever more unpopular. Escept perhaps, among women. ``Veblen attracted intelligent women, who shared his contempt for male ritual. Even for the serious-minded Jorgensens, it seems impossible to separate Veblen's life story from his love stories. His first wife, Ellen Rolfe, destroyed his academic career by tattling about her husband's affairs to the presidents of Stanford and the University of Chicago. After trudging all night through a blizzard to visit his second wife [-to-be] in `Nowhere,' Idaho, Veblen contacted double pneumonia, which crippled him for life. ``The Jorgensens correctly note that even his most famous writings seem thick and turgid to the modern taste. But he was the rarest of birds in 20th-century Amderica: a dangerous thinker.''



4. Thorstein Veblen's reputation has not fared well in the hands of his biographers. The worst bio by far ("Thorstein Veblen and his America" written by Joseph Dorfman in 1934) has sat in libraries like so much toxic waste waiting to mislead another scholar.
   Between 1993-95, Veblen's Minnesota childhood home was restored at great trouble and expense. Like most scholars, the restorers started with Dorfman and immediately discovered how full of inaccuracies it was. Then the letters of Andrew Veblen (Thorstein's older and "respectable" brother) were discovered. They were written to protest the distortions of Dorfman's manuscript. They were extremely accurate and eventually would guide virtually every aspect of the restoration.
   
   It was only a matter of time before a new generation of Veblen bios would be written based on the new information. Rick Tilman's "Intellectual Legacy.." was the first, and in many ways the best. But his book was written for serious Veblen scholars.
   The new Jorgensen bio is not at all daunting. It is well-written, well-research and very enjoyable to read. It focuses on the significant women in Thorstein's life--his amazing mother, his charming sister Emily, his quite crazy first wife, and his extremely helpful second wife.
   
   This emphasis would not have been my first choice, but since TBV was the only political economist of his age who would be remotely acceptable to a modern feminist, it was certainly appropriate. In fact, the Jorgensens seem to believe that of all the "heresies" that got Veblen in hot water, his enlightened views on women in society were possibly the most problematic.
   
   Outstanding! Every person who has ever been remotely interested in Veblen should read this book.

No comments about William Shockley - The Father of Silicon Valley (Biography).

No comments about The Vineyard: A Memoir.

1 comments about Hablando claro.

1. En este libro Jack Welch describe parte de su vida. Es básicamente biográfico, pero proporciona ideas de gerencia aplicables en la vida real. Yo recomiendo más el libro "Winning" del mismo autor, que es menos biográfico y más de gerencia aplicable a situaciones diarias de negocios.

1 comments about J.P. Morgan: The Financier as Collector.

1. J. P. Morgan amassed one of the worlds greatest art collections, mostly European works between the Fall of the Roman Empire through the Renaissance. He collected paintings to sculpture to relics to grave goods to furniture, tapestries, gems and so on. By the time he died in 1913 half his fortune was in art, 60 million dollars. He donated most of it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of which he was president and was a major force in its establishment.
   
   This is a coffee-table picture book containing about 30 pages of text and 100s of pictures of some of his most important works. It's not very in-depth and is a quick read (few hours) but (at a cheaper price) it's a pretty book and, being printed in Japan, it is of high quality. One leaves it with a feeling of seeing a random pile of stuff, which is exactly what many critics of Morgans collection have expressed.