Walter Reuther: THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN DETROIT
by Nelson Lichtenstein
List Price:
Our Price: $43.49
You Save: $0.51 (1%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $20.00 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Nelson LichtensteinEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-01-01
ISBN: 025206626X
Number of pages: 608
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Book Reviews of Walter Reuther: THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN DETROIT
Book Review: A badly missed chance to assess a charismatic leader
Summary: 2 Stars
I read this book because, both as a teenager and an adult, I have been intrigued by Walter Reuther. His stirring rhetoric, his youthful, dynamic image, and his sophistication all seemed to set him apart from, and way above, other union leaders. I expected to learn from this book "what made Walter tick," and to better understand the fate of American unionism. I came away with neither hope realized. Instead, I had to slog through an ideologically tinged micro analysis of the history of the UAW, and a depiction of its leader as an opportunist who all too often flinched from making decisions as bold as his rhetoric once he had achieved power. Most disappointing of all, I never came close to understanding what made him tick. While the author concedes in his introduction that it was very difficult to delve below the surface of the public man, surely he could have learned and conveyed more given the prodigious amount of research he conducted, including numerous interviews with close Reuther associates. Add to this the author's writing style--he loves compound sentences with two different messages--and this is a very difficult book to read. Then there is the author's failure to devote more than a modicum of attention to major events in the UAW history--why and how did it merge with the CIO, why did it merge with the AFL, and what precise role did Reuther play in these huge decisions? It says absolutely nothing about the crisis in quality control that so greatly contributed to the decline in popularity of American automobiles, e.g., "Be sure you do not buy a car from Detroit made on a Friday or a Monday!" Finally, in the author's otherwise excellent concluding chapter, he says nothing about the evolution of the economy to a post-industrial era, and the difficulties this poses for maintaining the continued strength and relevance of industrial unionism.
Business Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Business Books
Discovering the Possible: The Surprising World of Albert O. Hirschman (Titles from the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies)by Luca Meldolesi
University of Notre Dame Press; Published: 1995-04; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
What You See Is What You Get: My Autobiographyby Alan Sugar
Macmillan UK; Published: 2011-02-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
Sloan Rules: Alfred P. Sloan and the Triumph of General Motorsby David Farber
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 2002-11-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.08
Price in other shops:
The Hancocks of Marlborough: Rubber, Art and the Industrial Revolution - A Family of Inventive Geniusby John Loadman, Francis James
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2009-11-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $27.00
Price in other shops:
William Beveridge: A Biographyby Jose Harris
Oxford Univ Pr (Txt); Published: 1977-09; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
The Accidental Investment Banker: Inside the Decade that Transformed Wall Streetby Jonathan A. Knee
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2006-08-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.50
Price in other shops:
The Vital Few: The Entrepreneur and American Economic Progress (Galaxy Book)by Jonathan Hughes
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1986-06-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $32.34
Price in other shops:
The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Centuryby Steve Coll
Penguin Audio; Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2009-03-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.54
Price in other shops:
The Other Side of Wall Street: In Business It Pays to Be an Animal, In Life It Pays to Be Yourselfby Todd A. Harrison
FT Press; Published: 2011-05-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.61
Price in other shops:
Mr. China: A Memoirby Tim Clissold
HarperBusiness; Published: 2005-02-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.50
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinventionby Manning Marable
Penguin Audio; Viking Adult; Published: 2011-04-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.40
Price in other shops:
The Labor Relations Processby William H. Holley, Kenneth M. Jennings, Roger S. Wolters
South-Western College Pub; Published: 2008-04-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $158.87
Price in other shops:
Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operations, Second Editionby Sunil Chopra, Peter Meindl
Prentice Hall; Published: 2003-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $291.06
Labor Relations (13th Edition)by Arthur A Sloane, Fred Witney
Prentice Hall; Published: 2009-02-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $120.00
Price in other shops:
Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reaganby Kim Phillips-Fein
W. W. Norton & Company; Published: 2009-01-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops:
Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age Americaby James Green
Anchor; Published: 2007-03-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Organizing Immigrants: The Challenge for Unions in Contemporary California (Ilr Press Books)Ilr Pr; Published: 2000-03-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.46
Price in other shops:
Capital Moves: RCA's 70-Year Quest for Cheap Laborby Jefferson R. Cowie, Jefferson Cowie
New Press, The; Published: 2001-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops:
The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945-1968by Kevin Boyle
Cornell University Press; Published: 1998-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.99
Price in other shops:
The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Laborby Nelson Lichtenstein
Basic Books; Published: 1995-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $24.00
Price in other shops: