The reckoning /

Halberstam is a prolific and talented writer who has won the Pulitzer Prize and has had two of his previous books nominated for the National Book Award. In this well-written, interesting, and illuminating work Halberstam takes a look at the decline of American industrial supremacy. In showing the decline he discusses America's wasteful habits and unbounded affluence and compares these traits with the diligent work and reaction to adversity of the Japanese. Halberstam takes two companies-Ford and Nissan-and compares their growth, their reaction to labor problems, their philosophy, and their leadership in developing the various potentials of these organizations. Halberstam takes us behind the scenes in viewing adversary relationships in the corporate boardrooms of both Nissan and Ford. Especially intriguing are the splendid vignettes woven about such luminaries as Henry Ford, Lee Iacocca, and various Japanese industrial leaders. Though the quality of footnotes is not up to usual academic standards, the bibliography is very helpful and the general nature of the writing and the extent of the research make this a quality work. This highly recommended volume is readable at all levels and is especially recommended to general readers.-R.J. Wechman, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY

Powerfully developing his thesis that the complacency and shortsightedness of American workers and their bosses, especially the automakers of Detroit, have led to a decline of industrial know-how so critical that Asian carmakers, particularly the Japanese, have virtually taken over the market, Halberstam tells in panoramic detail a story that is alarming in its implications. Immediately ahead lies a harsh scenario that will see America's standards of living fall appreciablyonly sacrifices will restore our ``greatness.'' This lengthy book with its skilled, dramatic interweaving of two little-known storiesthe inside struggles of the Ford organization (including the firing of Lee Iacocca) in the 1970s and the growth of the Japanese automotive industry, notably Nissan, since the 1950scompletes the trilogy Halberstam began with The Best and the Brightest and The Powers That Be. Here is fresh and crucially meaningful material researched with notable thoroughness, replete with graphic portraits of top American and Japanese industrialists competing blindly on the one hand and with brilliant cunning on the other. The book is among the most absorbing of recent years, every page contributing to the breathtaking picture of an America that is going to learn to retool or else. 200,000 first printing. (October 15) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

This massive volume by Halberstam ( The Best and the Brightest , The Powers That Be ) will only add to his reputation. It is a historical overview of the auto industry in the United States and Japan, with a focus on Ford and Nissan. In a well-researched and very readable narrative, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author chronicles the personalities and company politics that decided the key issues. The resulting case study of the gradual decline of U.S. manufacturing and the corresponding rise of Japanese industry has much to tell us about our society. The Reckoning is highly recommended for both public and academic libraries as an important account of a story still unfolding. Richard C. Schiming, Economics Dept . , Mankato State Univ., Minn. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Another sparkling slab of history as high drama from powerhouse journalist (The Best and the Brightest, The Powers that Be) Halberstam. Here the Pulitzer-prize winner focuses on the head-on collision in the 1970's between Ford and Nissan, seeing in the consequent transfer of economic power from West to East the inevitable result of American hubris. The gripping narrative opens in 1973 Detroit with energy expert Charlie Maxwell's warnings of an incipient oil crunch falling on ears deafened by overdoses of power and money. That Ford failed to heed Maxwell is no surprise to Halberstam, whose exhaustive research reveals an industrial giant held hostage to the raging ambitions of generations of owners and managers. If there is a villain to this tale, it's Henry Ford himself, not the genius who invented the assembly line but the aging autocrat who let his company slide into such shambles that for years bills literally were totalled by measuring the height of the stacks of slips on which they were written. Also receiving Halberstam's scrutiny in a series of brilliant and often devastating portraits are Henry Ford II, Robert McNamara, Walter Reuther, and Lee Iacocca (who here loses much of his heroic luster). Interwoven with this tale of greed and pride is the very different story of Nissan, a story of men (and this book is about men, solely) less devoted to ambition than to honor. If there is a hero to this tale, it's the dominant Japanese ethos, which fused Nissan's management and workers into a cohesive unit at the same time that Ford's staff squandered its energies in internecine squabbling. Halberstam worked on this book for five years. An impressive investment with a rich return: this is first-class journalism all the way. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.