No comments about John D. Rockefeller: The Cleveland Years (Western Reserve Historical Society Publication No. 126).

1 comments about Rescuing the World: The Life and Times of Leo Cherne.

1. The name Leo Cherne is not universally known, but though he was never elected to public office, the man was enormously influential. His work can be found all through American endeavors in the last century; he was an advisor to nine presidents. He did remarkable humanitarian work for refugees with his International Rescue Committee. He died in 1999, and his life story reads like a history of the Cold War. His first biography is now out, _Rescuing the World: The Life and Times of Leo Cherne_ (State University of New York Press) by Andrew F. Smith. Smith first met Cherne the year before he died, because Cherne supposedly needed advice about writing his autobiography. Cherne was an accomplished writer, and had started the autobiography a few times. He certainly had plenty of material. But it never happened; "In the end I concluded that the apparently gregarious, outgoing Leo Cherne simply could not write a book about himself because it was unseemly for him to do so." This is a biography of his public life; Cherne refused to discuss stories others told of his private life, so subjects such as his marriage are barely mentioned, and will have to be included in the inevitable future biographies. Cherne was sufficiently busy in the public sphere to make this first attempt a valuable chronicle.

   Cherne was born in 1912 of first generation Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In high school, after a hurricane devastated Puerto Rico, Cherne appointed himself the head of a "Hurricane Committee," addressed a special student assembly on the issue, and started collecting the food and money that poured in afterwards. It was a model for future years: "... quick intervention in seizing the public platform, altruistic motives, positive responses of others, and record-breaking results." After law school, he began advising businessmen on taxes and governmental issues, and became a consultant to companies and to Congress. He advised business how to gear up for war, and gear up for a consumer economy afterward. He became interested in working with refugees after the war. He had humanitarian interest, to be sure, but he also thought of the refugees as political weapons against totalitarianism. If the regime was so perfect, he would point out, why were refugees fleeing? Cherne chaired the International Rescue Committee for forty years, seeing the organization through many financial problems and often personally taking part in relief efforts for refugees from Hungary, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Cuba. Cherne was able to unite diverse talents to support the aims of his International Rescue Committee, and through the book wander helpful volunteers like Rock Hudson, Liv Ullmann, and Joan Baez. Cherne got to speak up on behalf of Hungarian refugees on the Ed Sullivan Show, not a likely forum for humanitarian efforts. He was also a songwriter, and achieved fame as a sculptor. His busts of Kennedy, Lincoln, Churchill and other famous people are known all over the world.

   _Rescuing the World_ is a record of remarkable public service. Cherne never had a fortune, and he never held office, but he had passion for freedom and an insistence on liberty for others. He was able to inspire others to good efforts for the world's refugees. Read this book and if you ever hear people bemoaning the world's woes and asking, "What difference can just one person make?" you can ask if they have heard of Leo Cherne.

No comments about Newtons Laws CM Newton Story.

2 comments about I Don't Have Time for This: My Battle with Cancer.

1. Thomas Canavan, book on his battle with cancer is an excellent read. My father is dealing with cancer and Mr. Canavan's book has allowed me to see some of the trials a cancer patient is going through. I found it a wonderful book, especially for someone who is caring or has someone close to them with cancer. It gave me hope that my father can beat this and have more good years ahead. It also helped me to understand what my father is feeling since he does not verbalize his thoughts.
   This is definatly a book worth reading.



2. "I Don't Have Time for This" is an inspirational chronicle of one man's courage and perserverance through a life-threatening experience. The author, Tom Canavan, Jr., offers a unique, personal persepective into the cancerous beast to which we all are prey. His ability to acknowledge and accept the help and love of his family and friends shines through what would otherwise be a dark journey. I recommend this book to all who need encouragement and hope.

No comments about Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy.

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.

3 comments about Cereal Tycoon: The Biography of Henry Parsons Crowell.

1. Carole Joy Seid [...] recommended this product - she says that we all need heroes and this man is a hero! Easy to read and inspiring for those of us who have aspirations



2. Henry P. Crowell could make money just as easy as you and I can chew gum! You've probably never heard of this fine gentleman, but I know you are familiar with the company he helped make into a conglomerate. "QUAKER OATS." Mr. Crowell had a profound faith in God. He put his life into God's hands and just followed where God took him. If you are in business and you believe in God you will enjoy this book. There is very little out there about him, so get it here and enjoy!



3. This biography of Henry Crowell is an easy read with a profound message for those of us whom God has prospered. The picture of the late 1800s and early 20th century are both interesting and enlightning. The testimony of his life and sucess in several arenas, while maintaining a humble stature, should be an encouragement to all.

5 comments about Tina and Harry Come to America: Tina Brown, Harry Evans, and the Uses of Power.

1. This book is a nasty, in a sophistiacated 1930s sort of way. Think, Clare Booth Luce's "The Women". This book is the story of an unrelenting social climber who had genuine talent and ability on her side but little grace, humility or kindness. And it caught up with her. The book does a good job of showing why Ms. Brown has so many enemies and why she rose to such starry heights in the first place. It's great for people who love NYC, or who love journalism, or anyone who just wants a juicy piece of shameless gossip.



2. WHAT did Tina Brown do to Judy Bachrach? That's really the question you keep asking yourself while reading this bitchy if amusing book. Not that Ms Brown and Mr Evans don't deserve quite a bit of the stick they get here, but it is so... unrelenting. Judy Bachrach now works for Tina Brown's successor at Vanity Fair, and she applies to Tina and Harry the gossipy techniques which made VF's success. She should have applied fuller disclosure to her motives.

   That being said, most details here are probably accurate. Thebook is not published in the UK for fear of libel suits. Not very sportsmanlike of Tina and Harry.




3. Hi there and apologies for bothering you. Judy Bachrach has contacted me to point out that when I say an anecdote was repeated twice at the start of the book, I should in fact have said an entire quote. I know this sounds like splitting hairs, but she seems a little perturbed by this and so if you could change the review to make it 100 percent accurate I'd be very grateful. Many thanks in advance for your understanding.

   David Ljunggren




4. journalism and its practice isn't really everybody's top interest, but this is one of the best books i've ever read. tina brown is the editor of our generation, and how she did it is of compelling interest to women in journalism everywhere. one way she did it was by writing what can only be called faye wray journalism in the 1970s -- something invented by older blondes on this side of the atlantic. it makes for a great read, and it helped both of them find rich mentors. that's part of the way the world is, and this book is exactly about that, including the anti-semitism of britain (tina is one-fourth jewish) and how when she could not conquer british society as she wished, tina chose to conquer hollywood. (her father, whom she loved, was a B-movie producer.) how she persuaded media mogul s.i. newhouse to fund her money-losing yet spectacular rise is suggested (let's just say blondeness is involved). the biography of her husband, harry evans, is as compelling as tina's -- almost d. h. lawrence -- starting out sexually compulsive as the crusading editor in some polluted northern england rust belt town. how tina has mined her older husband's gift for graphics is displayed. i loved the roseanne issue of the new yorker which all the white boys hated. roseanne is tina and tina is roseanne. and i'll wager (were i a bettin' man) that that's why people hate this book. you need to read it. tina (along with katharine graham and princess diana) was a captain of the girl team. and this is how she got there. cover 'em up if you got 'em.



5. I started this book with the conviction that I would finally learn what had made Tina Brown such a feared and respected editor. Unfortunately, when I finished it I was somewhat disappointed. Judy Bachrach certainly does a good job of finding disaffected former employees who dish out all sorts of dirt on Tina Brown and detail working practices and habits which seem to have caused her underlings some serious grief. But what I did not really learn was what exactly why she was brought across from London to edit first Vanity Fair and then the New Yorker. She was clearly not a charlatan, she clearly had talents, but the use to which she put them is obscured by the dirt and nastiness regularly dumped all over Brown by other people quoted in this book. As a reader of the New Yorker for the last 15 years I can say that she did indeed change it, in many ways for the better. I still have some of my old pre-Brown copies of the magazine and while they do contain the occasional excellent articles, there are also many long, long screeds about fruitflies and tomatoes and some obscure aspect of baseball which were allowed to ramble on and on. Whatever faults she may have had, Tina Brown at least turned the magazine into something I wanted to read and actually looked forward to every week. She did make mistakes (as the book makes clear) and I agree with critics who say the Diana issue was extremely ill-judged, but the magazine now is in many ways a sorry shadow of what it once was. It saddens me to say that I look forward to Harper's and Atlantic Monthly with more anticipation than I do the New Yorker. The one area where the magazine has really collapsed is the fiction section, where whoever is in charge seems to have completely given up. Almost every week it's the same thing, exceedingly well-known names writing variations on the same themes, be it Alice Munro or William Trevor or whoever else it might be. What happened to the magazine's fine old tradition of unearthing new authors? I note that Zadie Smith is now going to be writing a story for the magazine, which is a good thing, but it would have been more impressive had the magazine published her before the success of "White Teeth". Yes, there has been the odd New Fiction issue with a few new authors, but I can think of no area where the New Yorker has collapsed so miserably as in fiction. So do read Bachrach's book if you have an interest in Tina Brown and Harry Evans but don't expect an answer to all your questions.

1 comments about Mr. Baruch.

1. A biography of Bernard Baruch written in 1957 (before his 1965 death), this book reveals amazing facets of American history from just after the Civil War (it's hard to deal with the author's attitude toward the early KKK) in Camden, South Carolina, to the NYC financial world at the turn of the century where Baruch made his millions, through all the organization of US resources for WWI, which he managed, the Peace Treaty talks for which he was an economic advisor, and the painful aftermath of its rejection, along with the League of Nations, by the U.S., dooming us all to WWII, when Baruch was also an influential figure. The author is too non-critical and assumes the kind of detailed knowledge of the then-recent past that any educated adult would have had in the 50's, but which is long-gone now. Still, a fascinating study of economics, anti-semitism, and the condition of the South.

3 comments about The White Sharks of Wall Street: Thomas Mellon Evans and the Original Corporate Raiders (Lisa Drew Books).

1. I found this book to be filled with fascinating stories about Thomas Evans and other like him who changed the face of Wall Street in the 50's. As far as corporate raiders, most people only think back to the 1980's for when it began. This book will give you insight into how it all began half a century ago. It is not just a single story, but numerous ones about various radiers and the companies they targeted. For anyone who wants to learn about Wall Street history, this book is a must.



2. An important book that covers an overlooked era and subject.



3. This book filled a gap for me in the history of Wall Street and some of its more colorful participants. I think there is a tendency for the more notable "raiders" and their like to be confined to the 1980's and 1990's, and as this book points out this could not be further from the truth.

   This book chronicles the exploits of men like; Thomas Mellon Evans, Lou Wolfson, and Leopold Silverstein. These individuals were out inventing the type of financial transactions that today are commonplace, and seem to have a rather brief history. The truth is that these; raiders, proxy fighters, liquidators, were using sinking funds, Leveraged Buy Outs, and Junk Bonds long before Michael Milken heard the term. In fact much of this took place before he and Ivan Boesky and their crowd were born.

   The book delves into specific deals that are enticing reading just by there names. In 1955 a complicated price-fixing scheme that included companies still doing business today operated a system known as the "phase of the moon".

   Shark-repellent, poison pills, greenmail, side deals, collusion were all in a days work. What was also interesting is these people never had their fill, many ending in bankruptcy court half a century after they had started.

   The did what they had to do to get what they wanted, and if that meant convincing a 90 year old woman to part with her shares, it was just another day in the trenches.

   I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Wall Street History in general, and the specific predecessors of today's big names. Long before "Chainsaw Al" there were men hacking away at companies that even he would have found audacious.

   The Authoress does a wonderful job of relating this History in a readable easily accessible format, which is well worth a reader's time. You will be amply rewarded.

   I don't know how Trump got in this; his contribution was an endorsement on the book jacket. Not one of his deals made the book.

   Great addition to your financial library.