No comments about Done in Oil: An Autobiography.

No comments about The Vital Few: The Entrepreneur and American Economic Progress (Galaxy Book).

4 comments about Ambassador from Wall Street: The Story of Thomas W. Lamont, J.P. Morgan's Chief Executive.

1. This is a fresh and thoughtful review of an important period in American history with up-close portraits of some its most fascinating personalities--Charles Lindbergh and Lady Astor among others. LAURA and BILL RILEY



2. The Ambassador From Wall Street is a fasciating tale of one of the great financial leaders of the 20th Century. As a retired New York banker who started work in 1950 and who held some quite responsible positions, I found the book contained messages for bankers that are as true today as they were in the life of Mr. Lamont, particularly on how to avoid undue risk and how to manage the inevitable messes when they occur. The book seems to have been well researched by the arthor, a Grandson of the subject,and takes us through the many economic and financial developments of the first half of the twentieth century. Its scope allows the reader to have a broad view of the financial world, a useful benefit in this age of globalization. I particularly recommend the book to young students of finance. The lessons learned will enhance their careers.



3. Alethea W. Hawley's review offers an excellent summary of a well researched account of the life and impact of Mr. Thomas W. Lamont and his importance to the major economic and political powers of his era and why this account deserves a five star rating.



4. This biography of Thomas W. Lamont, J.P. Morgan's Chief Executive is a thoroughly researched account of the legendary financier during the first half of the twentieth century, when the powerful banking firm was at the pinnacle of international finance. The author, his grandson has written this lively biography based on his independent research and his personal collection of family papers and Thomas Lamont's letters.The reader will become acquainted with the economic and political history of the period, the many crucial world events that were transpiring, as well as a full roster of leaders such as Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Wilson and Hoover, who all sought advice from Lamont. Along with all of the above, the author portrays the luxurious lifestyle of his grandfather, such as commuting from his home to Wall Street by yacht. There are social vignettes such as a house party at Lady Astor's Cliveden, as well as a Lamont soiree during which a Federal judge broke the nose of Walter Lippman's charming wife. The reader is also given glimpses of such luminaries as Charles Lindbergh and H.G. Wells, who were among Thomas Lamont's close friends. John Kenneth Galbraith praised this volume and characterized it as "affectionate and well researched...We are in debt to Edward Lamont for this literate and thoroughly interesting biography." Book List and Publishers Weekly contributed highly enthusiastic reviews, and recommended it for those interested in history, banking and foreign affairs. Written in a brisk and informative style, Lamont interjects his wit at just the right places so as to present a very balanced, straight forward, and informative piece of work.

2 comments about The Watson Dynasty: The Fiery Reign and Troubled Legacy of IBM's Founding Father and Son.

1. Those who have read Tedlow's Giants of Enterprise are already aware of his unique and abundant skills as a brilliant thinker and eloquent writer. In this volume, he focuses his attention on Thomas Watson Sr. and Jr. who established and then developed one of the great dynasties in modern business history. (Watson Sr. was among seven "Giants" Tedlow discusses in his previous book.) This volume consists of several separate but carefully integrated parts: Watson Sr.'s life and career, his son Tom's life and career, and their often volatile personal as well as professional relationship at IBM.
   
   Of special interest to me is Watson Sr.'s career with the National Cash Register company during which he observed first-hand the leadership and management style of its founder and CEO, John Henry Patterson. Tedlow suggests that Watson Sr. learned many lessons from Patterson which later proved invaluable when, after being asked to resign his position at NCR, Watson accepted an offer to head the Computing-Tabulating-Recording company, renamed the International Business Machines Corporation in 1924. By then, Watson had demonstrated his genius as a salesman. "It was, however, his very appreciation of selling that prompted his constant push for better products and his support of engineers and the interest risks of research and development....What made Watson great was his understanding that in order for marketing to succeed, the marketers needed a product to sell which the market would accept....Selling was the art of helping the customer to understand that he did indeed both need and want what you were selling to him." Tedlow leaves no doubt that Watson's years at NCR fully prepared him to thrive as CEO of IBM, choosing the right product to bet on, taking full advantage of any and all opportunities to sell it, and -- meanwhile -- building a culture in which ever-increasing sales and profits were driven by technical superiority and a total commitment to serving each customer's needs.
   
   Also of interest to me is the relationship between the two Thomas Watsons. Theirs was a love-hate relationship, to be sure. Thomas Watson Sr. ran IBM for 42 years and one week, from May 1, 1914, until May 8, 1956. Throughout that period, father and son frequently had "hellacious" arguments. According to Watson Jr., their fights were "savage, primal, and unstoppable" and yet, as Tedlow explains, they deeply loved and greatly respected each other. Following Watson Sr.'s death, he was proclaimed the "World's Greatest Salesman" in a front-page New York Times headline. Watson Jr. was devastated, so much so that he took several months off to cope with his grief. He then returned to his duties as CEO and proceeded to transform IBM into what was then, by all accounts, the world's best managed corporation.
   
   A brief commentary such as this simply cannot do full justice to what Tedlow achieves in this volume. Suffice to say that he draws upon a wealth of historical and biographical information to reveal and explain the full significance of two great corporate leaders, to be sure, but also to reveal and explain them in compelling human terms, warts and all. Eventually, Tedlow observes, IBM encountered in the 1990s, a near-death experience. "The problem with IBM was not Watson principles and practices. It was that those principles and practices had ossified. Rather than being living, breathing, flexible guidelines within which creative people could work and be playful at their work, they had degenerated into mere words which had lost their meaning. They were only limiting, never liberating. The shadow [of the Watsons] remained; the substance had disappeared." Thomas J. Watson Jr. died on December 31, 1993. The next CEO, Lou Gerstner, was the first successor to Watson Jr. who would not have him looking over his shoulder. On Gerstner's watch, IBM survived its near-death experience and is now led by Samuel J. Palmisano, an executive who has spent his entire career at IBM. To say that IBM has returned to its roots is to say that IBM has re-established itself in alignment with the principles and practices of two visionary leaders named Watson.



2. If you are interested in the lives of the father and son that built IBM, this book is a pretty good place to start. It is an interpretive essay rather than an academic or formal biography. Since the author is basing this book on secondary sources, he carefully lists all the sources he relied on to write this book, He doesn't claim to provide original research or to have had access to primary sources that aren't publicly available. But it is good for a quick read and introduction to the Thomas Watson Sr and Jr.

   Since business is done by actual human beings, I enjoy peeling back the corporate veneer and the impersonal language of saying the company did this or that and looking at the real people and what they did with a touch of why they made their choices if such evidence is available. Not for the soap opera or supposition of it, but to learn real lessons about the character, the luck, the blunders, the brilliance that makes up all of the stories of history. One of the phony things corporations do in misusing the language is to say things like ABC Giantcorp made the decision to do XYZ. Actually, the men and women who run the organization made that decision. The Watsons both knew this and were, by today's standards, surprisingly human (if hard driving).

   Watson Sr. was a special character who came out of that early period of the first vast American corporations. He learned the right lessons and had the right traits. He found the right opportunity in building what he turned into IBM. Watson Jr. turned into a special character partly from the training from his father, but more by his experiences in WWII. But like a great many families of men of vast ambition and ability, the family of Watson Sr. did not get all the benefits of wealth and experience without cost. There was a lot to live up to and, for the most part, they met their responsibilities (with some all-too-normal failings). All in all, the author tells a cautionary tale.

   The book is well documented. There is a list of the sources used for each chapter, a bibliographical essay with a good list of the sources you can use for more reading on the Watsons an IBM and a good index.

   I will say that the author's informal writing style, especially when he flips into the first person, can be disorienting. Yes, he has a breezy style that reads like a class lecture sounds, but at times it caused me to stop and have to parse the language to figure out exactly whom he was talking about and what he was saying. There were a couple of times that I had to make surmises and am still not absolutely sure that the meaning I finally took away was what the author intended.

   But it is really a pretty good and valuable book.

No comments about A Horse in the Ladies' Room.

2 comments about Fritz Pollard: PIONEER IN RACIAL ADVANCEMENT (Sport and Society).

1. Carroll pens a thorough and illuminating account of an early African-American icon that Americans of all colors gradually forgot, Fritz Pollard. Fritz Pollard was arguably the first modern age African American athletic star that used his athletic prowess to further his opportunities in other fields such as movies, booking, investments, and even tax consulting. He successfully, although not without difficulty, negotiated the hazards, pitfalls, challenges, and bias of a racially charged America to become as Carroll maintains, "a pioneer in interracial relations." (4) Carroll promotes and attributes this pioneer theme to Pollard throughout the biography. The author also accredits Pollard's successes and pioneering nature to Pollard's family background and childhood. Although not overly sympathetic, Carroll clearly contains high praise for Pollard and his accomplishments contending that Pollard "established more `firsts' for his race than perhaps any other African American in this century." (239) The author is careful to temper this praise with accounts of Pollard's bitterness towards perceived injustices and mistreatment due to racism and lack of attention Pollard thought he deserved. The result is a commendable biography of Fritz Pollard as an early race relations pioneer, athletic star, and sometimes-successful businessman deserving of far more attention and memories than Pollard currently garners.
   Efforts such as Carroll's help keep the memories of Pollard alive for those who have never heard of or fully grasped the achievements of Pollard. Carroll's assertion that Pollard was a pioneer in race relations, however, appears to fall flat in some respects. As Carroll points out, Pollard had to negotiate a subtle balance between asserting his race and accepting the tide of racism. Yet, it appears that Pollard endured more racism and contempt on the playing field rather than in business endeavors. Perhaps this was because most of Pollard's business activities were aimed at African Americans themselves, but it seems plausible that Pollard would face far more discrimination and racial injustices in the business arena than the sporting one. One must also question what Pollard really thought of his role in pioneering racial equality.
   Towards the end of the book, Carroll notes that Pollard displays bitterness in regards to the racial animosities delivered his way. Pollard's daughter, Leslie asserts that Pollard deeply cared about his race and the cause of civil rights. (239) Acknowledging that some of Pollard's efforts were behind closed doors and diminished because of a natural assumption that the black middle class emulated white society too much, Carroll's contention that Pollard was truly a pioneer in race relations seems weak. Perhaps it is only a case of the author failing to connect accurately his argument to his examples. Whether his deeds pioneered race relations or not, Pollard deserves remembering for all of the firsts and successes he indeed accomplished.



2. If you don't know Fritz Pollard you must read this book. It provides insight into him and the people closest to him. It raises your spirits and makes you want to accomplish great tasks. This is an A+++++++ book for any football fan.

3 comments about Profiles in Leadership.

1. You really wont learn much about leadership from this expensive tome. Its just a compilation of short sketches about people who are known for leadership. Nothing in depth at all. I regret having spent the money on this book. I should have looked it over more closely before buying it.



2. Is this an encyclopedia? Or a biographical dictionary? Or a history of leadership? Or an "A to Z guide to power"? Actually, it is all of the above. Axelrod organizes his material within 14 categories which range from Character Model to Visionary. The common denominators among the 158 different leaders' lives and careers are "significance of achievement and excellence of execution." Each individual entry is organized according to name of subject, with birth and death dates; the leadership category (or categories) to which he or she is assigned by Axelrod; leadership achievements (a bullet list); a concise life narrative; and leadership lessons revealed in the subject's life and career. For many of the entries, Axelrod also includes key leadership quotations, "In His Own Words" or "In Her Own Words." The 158 subjects are arranged in alphabetical order, from Abbas the Great (1571-1629) to Yang Chen (died 1604). For obvious reasons, Axelrod includes entries devoted to Alexander the Great, Winston Churchill, Elizabeth I, Mohandas Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon I, and George Washington.

   Of special interest to me, however, are the entries which focus on leaders about whom I previously knew little, if anything. For example, Gnaeus Julius Agricola (37-93), "Brilliant Roman conqueror of Britain who wisely leavened conquest with a high degree of toleration"; Alfonso VIIII (1155-1214), "One of the great warrior-rulers of medieval Spain [who] achieved overwhelming victory against the forces of Islam on the Iberian Peninsula"; Stephen Decatur (1779-1820), "early U.S. naval leader whose skilled heroics established a naval tradition of excellence and valor"; and Tecumseh (ca. 1768-1813), "Combining charisma and persuasive reasoning, the Shawnee chief united several tribes to mount a powerful resistance to white settlement during the American Revolution, the Indian Wars of the Old Northwest, and the War of 1812."

   Axelrod has done a brilliant job of organizing and then presenting his material. There are so many different ways by which to read it. For example, entries grouped within one of the 14 categories such as Improviser (which has 21) or pairs of adversaries such as Napoleon I and Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and/or Ulysses Simpson Grant and Robert Edward Lee. Or perhaps leaders within an historical period such as that of the Roman Empire (55 B.C. to 410) or World War Two. Or perhaps only military or religious leaders; or more specifically, only American presidents. I have approached the material in all of these ways and will return frequently to re-read portions of this volume for both edification and pleasure.




3. This is a monumental and absorbing collection of 200 brief profiles of the lives of great leaders, highlighting their achievements. More than just a collection biographies, the author has classified each leader into three or more key leadership type categories, such as innovator, motivator or strategist, listing them accordingly in a special index. Each profile is broken down into: 1) name, birth and death dates; 2) leadership categories; 3) achievements; 4) life profile, with emphasis on career; and 5) a bullet list of leadership lessons, plus a few quotations in some instances. The leaders chosen for this immense work are drawn from all areas of life-politics, military, religion-and range across the historical landscape, from Hammurabi and Julius Ceasar to Margaret Thatcher and Colin Powell. We at Stern's Management Review Online find this a gem of a book for anyone who seeks a greater understanding of the nature of successful leadership-or who enjoys gaining insights from the lives of those who have shaped history .

No comments about Henry's Lieutenants (Great Lakes Books).

1 comments about William Marshal, Knight-errant, Baron, and Regent of England (MART: The Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching).

1. I learned after reading the Painter biography of William Marshal that it has been largely superseded by David Crouch's (which I will be reading soon), but I believe it still has much to offer.
   
   For this work, first published in 1933, Painter draws heavily on the _Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal_, a contemporary chronicle written by an obvious Marshal partisan. Naturally, the Histoire's version on Marshal's life, the glowing but vague physical descriptions, the legendary exploits and such, is to be taken with a grain of salt. However, Painter's book is much more than a mere translation of the _Histoire_. While Marshal's early life is to some extent lost in the mists of time, significant objective information becomes available beginning with his association with the Plantagenets when he was in his early 20s. From this point on, this well-footnoted book references a variety of chronicles and administrative records, and references to the _Histoire_ grow fewer and farther between.
   
   Two aspects of Marshal's life make his life story especially edifying to the medievalist:
   
   First, it shows us what virtually every younger son who didn't go into holy orders wanted to be. Marshal epitomized the late twelfth-century knight, first distinguishing himself in battle and on the tournament field, then garnering the attention of a powerful patron, Eleanor of Aquitaine, which he then parlayed into a long and profitable royal association that included marriage to the wealthiest heiress in the realm. Late in life, he became the reluctant but highly effective regent of England. Even if the _Histoire_ sometimes is a bit too glowing in its praise, somewhat over the top in detailing his exploits, "reading between the lines" renders an only slightly duller portrait.
   
   Second, his long life and intimate association with English royalty means that his story is also a crash course in early Plantagenet history, beginning with latter part of Henry II's reign and then encompassing Richard I, John, and the first few years of the boy king Henry III. While Painter probably isn't entirely fair to John, with whom William fell out a couple of times, William's experiences with John are well-documented and can still be instructive.
   
   I found Painter's writing surprisingly readable, at least as much, and probably more so, than Georges Duby's. Painter was only slightly less enthusiastic about Marshal than the writer of the _Histoire_, never applying anything but the highest of motives to Marshal's actions. But he does a good job of justifying his positions; I always felt they were grounded in realism.

1 comments about Aspinwall Empire.

1. I admit that I am a pretty biased reviwer because the author is my late grandfather, and the book is a biography of my great-great-great uncle. However, it is not just a book for us relatives! The Aspinwall Empire is a biography of William Henry Aspinwall, a highly successful 19th century American businessman and philanthropist. Aspinwall has been all but forgotten today, but he made many important contributions to the United States. Among other things, he was a pioneer in the clipper ship area, built the railroad that traversed the Panama isthmus, was a founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the ASPCA, and a benefactor to many causes and institutes, including the Virginia Theological Seminary (where Aspinwall Hall still stands as a tribute to him and his brother, John Lloyd Aspinwall). There are many more noteworthy contributions that Aspinwall made, and my Granddaddy spent over five years putting together an extremely thorough, but still interesting, biography that chronicles them. It is a very interesting read, especially for history buffs (and of course Aspinwall relatives!) . My grandfather was very proud of his book, and I encourage everyone to check it out and see why.