Ford; The Men and the Machine

Lacey, Robert

ISBN 10: 0316511668 / ISBN 13: 9780316511667

Published by Little, Brown and Company, 1986

About this Item

Large Size Book.Spanning more than a hundred years and four generations, the story of Henry Ford, the automobile company he created, and the dynasty he founded is one of the great dramas of our time, yet never before has it been told from beginning to end in all its richness. Now Robert Lacey has captured in one volume the public achievements and the private tragedies, the feuds, affairs, and personalities that make up this epic tale. Ford is above all the story of a handful of powerful individuals whose ambitions have helped shape modern American society: Henry Ford I, the founder, one of history's great figures, whose legendary achievements- the Model T, the moving assembly line, the Five Dollar Day, the Peace Ship- and down-home folk wisdom are recounted in school civics courses. Edsel Ford, the founder's son, who was a gifted car designer and executive, a humane and compassionate man. Always the dutiful, devoted, and subservient son, Edsel could never stand up to his father, even though Edsel had taken his place as president of the company. Harry Bennett, Henry I's flamboyant henchman, who with sinister vigor carried out the old man's darker impulses. Ford reveals for the first time how Bennett struck up alliances with both organized crime, whose thugs beat up and intimidated union organizers at Ford factories, and J. Edgar Hoover, who turned a blind eye to the violence in return for Bennett's information on Communist sympathizers among Ford workers. Henry Ford II, Edsel's eldest son, who wrested control of the company at its darkest hour from his grandfather and Bennett, hired a brilliant group of young executives known as the "Whiz Kids," and transformed Ford into the fourth-largest industrial corporation in the world. As Lacey so vividly relates, Henry II, like his grandfather, is a man of complex and paradoxical impulses. Recounting Henry's often volatile relationships with his three wives, the legendary coming-out parties for his daughters, his present estrangement from them and other relatives, and the alcohol problems that have touched members of the family, Ford is the first book to explore in depth the personal lives of problems of the present generations of Fords. Lee Iacocca, the immigrant's son from Allentown, Pennsylvania, who made it to the presidency, at the right hand of Henry II. Ford provides the first objective account of the titanic battle between these two powerful and gifted men that ended in Iacocca's dismissal. A man of driving ambition and overpowering ego, Iacocca learned how to sell cars with flair and play corporate politics with ferocity. He was brought down only when he made the fatal mistake of imagining he could replace Henry Ford II himself at the head of what was still, no matter how large or modern a family firm.

Seller Inventory # 000298

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Ford; The Men and the Machine
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Publication Date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0316511668
• ISBN 13: 9780316511667
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: hiz Kids," and transformed Ford into the fourth-largest industrial corporation in the world. Lee Iacocca, the immigrant's son from Allentown, Pennsylvania, who made it to the presidency, at the right hand of Henry II. Ford provides the first objective a
• Edition: Book Club Edition.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

Spanning more than one hundred years and four generations, this biography of Henry Ford, the automobile company he created, and the dynasty he founded, reflects the rise of industrial America and the American dream

From the Inside Flap

apher Robert Lacey tells the fascinating, authoritative account of the ambitious men and glamorous women behind the world's largest family-controlled business empire. From Henry Ford -- the original in every sense of the word -- whose revolutionary standards created a new way of life for America and the world, to Henry Ford II, old Henry's grandson, who rose from a frivolous playboy to become an industrial giant in his own right, to the tragic figure of Edsel Ford, old Henry's son and young Henry's father, smothered by the one and overshadowed by the other, to brash Lee Iacocca, whose visionary plans for the company would put him in conflict with Henry Ford II.
"Richly anecdotal and wonderfully readable . . . irresistable." The Washington Post Book World