This book is an important contribution to the theory of ethnic conflict regulation developed by scholars such as Lijphart, Nordlinger and Horowitz. Especially, the introduction part by O'Leary and MacGarry is excellent in the sense that it succeeded in incorporating the massive volume of existing cases and theories in a fairly organised way.

However, it is regrettable that the following case studies are a bit messy, and do not correspond to, nor pay attention to the editors' taxonomy.

Nonetheless, for those who are seriously interested in ethnic conflict regulation, this volume is worth reading.

The Scopes "Monkey" Trial did not appear in American History textbooks until after the play "Inherit the Wind" opened on Broadway. In fact, several textbooks used the fictional account of the trial as the basis for what appeared as history. One of the chief virtues of this book by Freya Ottem Hanson is that she puts the celebrated "duel in the shade" where Clarence Darrow questioned William Jennings Bryan about the Bible and evolution in perspective.

Hanson only spends a couple of pages on the cross-examination, but she does focus on the point where Bryan admitted that the days in Genesis were not necessarily 24-hour days. This, of course, is the focal point of the play's version of what happened. However, an examination of the trial transcript shows that Bryan, knowing where Darrow was going with his questions, was actually attempting to pre-empt the line of attack; he was not force to admit the point, but actually volunteered the point. After all, according to Genesis the sun, moon, and stars were not created until the fourth day. So, while Hanson does not let the cross-examination dominate the story of the trial, she does buy into the importance of that particular declaration. So while "The Scopes Monkey Trial" focuses more on what happened in the court that most juvenile accounts, it still falls short of adequately capturing the legal arguments of the trial.

Hanson provides a lot of information about the trial, including details about all of the various witnesses for the prosecution and the defense. I was also pleased to see that she pays more attention to Dudley Field Malone's speech in defense of academic freedom than you will find in Edward J. Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the trial "Summer of the Gods." However, for a book that is focusing on the trial as a court case, I was surprised that it does not given young readers a clear sense of the stages of the trial. The cross-examination of the third and final stage of the trial was intended to embarrass Bryan; the decision had already been made to ask the jury to find Scopes guilty. Darrow would even refrain from giving a closing argument just to prevent Bryan from giving the "Back to God" speech he had been working on for weeks.

Malone's speech represents the key position of the defense, which was to reconcile evolution and Genesis. This is important because it was this rhetoric of reconciliation that was intended to be their position and not the ridicule of Bryan that came to characterize their position. Furthermore, Hanson ignores the first stage of the trial, where defense attorney Arthur Garfield Hays argued the Butler Act was unconstitutional. Hays is mentioned in the book (but not in the index) so young reader do not learn about how he drafted up a law patterned on the Butler Act to teach that the Earth was the center of the universe, just like it says in the Bible.

Another strength of the book is how Hanson covers the legal cases involving evolution and creationism from the Epperson v. Arkansas case that finally saw the anti-evolution laws declared unconstitutional to more recent court actions. The book is illustrated with black & white photographs, including several which I have never seen before (and since I did my dissertation on the Scopes trial I had some reason to believe I had seen pretty much everything out there). In terms of primary and secondary sources, Hanson certainly availed herself of a better selection than any other author of a juvenile account of the trial....

The university I teach for uses this book. It is an "easy to complex" book which is perfect for the classroom or for the manager who wants to improve his or her strategic management skills in the comfort of their reading room. The strategic management model developed by the authors is easy to follow--and remember--to include the many connections it makes with external and internal analysis. I am most impressed with the authors' coverage of leadership, organizational structure, and culture. Not only will you learn the basics of strategic management--but it is a quick read and includes some outstanding case study's to reenforce the learning. A great read.

This book provides an excellent overview of critical issues prevalent in the Pacific Islands. An easy to read book that explores a variety of themes, all the time analysing the issue of sustainable development and its implications for the Pacific.

I was really hooked into this book in the beginning, however it took 3/4 of the book for anything to really start happening. With so much time spent developing the characters, the ending was anti-climactic. And, predictable. Dare I say disappointing?

I realize this is fiction, but shouldn't it seem plausible? Couldn't the bad guys have tracked them by credit card transactions? How could people on the run and in hiding have so many fancy dinners? Isn't it amazing how they escape every bad scenario without a scratch? They kept returning to locations they were known to frequent or would likely be and these places were never staked out. Why didn't Dr.Duran suffer any long term effects from having his brain messed with so substantially? Everyone is so multi-talented as to be sickening.

The premise of the book was excellent and worth the read if only to broaden your mind as to how freaky things really are in the world. But, once you get halfway through, figure it out your self and put the book in your yard sale box.

The husband and wife team who wrote this book under the pseudonym of John Case have two excellent novels to their credit, i.e. The Gensis Code and The First Horseman. This book, while it has an excellent premise and storyline, somehow doesn't bring the story off with the usual panache as their two previous efforts. The start is quick, but after they establish that things are seldom what they seem with two of their characters, the story, to my mind, bogs down terribly while the sister of one of the story's victims tries to sort things out and understand what is going on. Well, what is going on is the evolution of mind control experiments which began back in the 50's and with the help of some experts in the field she is able to recover the identity of one of the principals in the story. The mystery being solved, the rest of the book is dedicated to getting revenge for the damage that has been caused and the pace of the action picks up considerably. It's not a bad book, but it seems to have sufferred, in this instance, from over writing. I will hope for a better result the next time these two collaberate.

The Syndrome is an excellent novel, full of thrills and chills! I spent one whole day (and into the night) reading this novel, I couldn't put it down. John Case has written an exciting story, part spy thriller, part mystery, part romance, all the elements necessary for a spell-binding, edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting read. It is obvious that Mr. Case's considerable knowledge of his chosen topic (also clearly demonstrated in The Genesis Code and The First Horseman) has allowed him to once again write a very realistic and "scary" novel. I highly recommend The Syndrome.

Well this is a very unique book indeed. I bought it because I am a clinical psychology major with a special interest in forensic psych, and it seemed like an interesting topic to have an FBI profiler's opinions on. It started off wonderfully, but soon I noticed a disturbing trend. Time after time after time Douglas mentions his previous books by title, the same two books over and over again. Every other page makes reference to one or the other, and it's almost like an obvious plug or commercial every few pages. It gets really old really quick. The next thing I noticed was how the author mentioned time after time examples of extraordinary or unusual behavior that he performed, and he should receive glory for. Granted, he is an expert in this area, but the book was supposed to be about the psyches of killers, stalkers, and rapists, but is instead a book written with the underlying job of boasting this man's career and advertising his previous books. I'm not saying this because it was mentioned only a few times, I'm saying this because it took away from the book itself. These were repeated a dreadfully annoying number of times, and that was all within the first four chapters (where I decided to read another book instead.)

The technical aspects, however, were very good when they were actually given the spotlight for a few minutes.

In Obsession, John Douglas gives the reader a brief glimpse into the criminal mind and a short overview of the process of criminal profiling. I like the fact that he refuses to make any excuses for criminals (coming from a dysfunctional family, childhood abuse, insanity, etc.) He makes it very clear that regardless of a person's background or previous experiences, the execution of a crime is always voluntary....that the criminal made a choice to disregard the consequences of his actions, and inflict consequences on an innocent victim. The only thing I didn't really care for too much in this book was the fact that so little was devoted to actual criminal profiling. Most of the book is dedicated to victim's rights and how to prevent yourself from becoming a victim. While there is nothing wrong with such topics, and he does make some very excellent points, I felt a little bit shortchanged after becoming intrigued with the coverage of criminal psychology...intrigued enough to look into it further as a possible career, and then the rest of the book jumps into victim's rights and never looks back.

Having read all of the books John Douglas has put out regarding his time as an FBI profiler, the first thing that came to mind is why he didn't crash and burn from the constant drumbeat of depravity. To say that we need someone of this level of commitment to stand between us and that kind of immorality is an understatement. I thought I would not like grim and graphic descriptions of his work. I was wrong. The book is taut, enlightening and scary, all at the same time. He cites specific cases including the preppie murder case and brought to the surface aspects of the case that I had been previously unaware. It is tough to make such a narrative read as a thriller but I think that Douglas and his co-author Mark Olshaker have done the best they can with the glut of the material. I highly recommend it to any and all who desire to make sense out of the senseless. Douglas and Olshaker do their best to make it understandable.

I've read all of Joseph Wambaugh's books, from THE NEW CENTURIONS to FIRE LOVER, and this was the least enjoyable.
FIRE LOVER probably doesn't measure up because there's not a whole lot of suspense. We know from the synopsis that arson investigator John Orr may have been the most notorious arsonist since Nero. Orr was a brazen offender, setting fires in the middle of the day when customers were in the stores, leading to the death of four at Ole's Home Center in South Pasadena. But he makes one big mistake, leaving his fingerprint on yellow legal paper that was used, along with a cigarette, a rubber band and three matches, to start a fire similar to the one at Ole's Home Center. The fingerprint was almost ignored because of the jealousy between firemen and police arson investigators.
Much of the book involves courtroom gymnastics. There are so many closing statements that you tell yourself, "this must be the last one." But you're wrong. There are more of them during the penalty phase and Wambaugh cites them all, practically verbatim.
Wambaugh is also famous for his irreverent narrative tone. This works in CHOIRBOYS, where we assume the narrator is a man in blue, but here he's supposed to be an objective journalist. He refers to jurors, lawyers, and judges as "...strange fish that lazily glide, blowing gas bubbles that pop ineffectually on the surface of the litigation tanks in which they live and breed." He likes this strange fish motif so much he uses it over and over again.
All of this said, I'm still looking forward to Wambaugh's next fictional tome. It seems an eternity since FLOATERS.

Joseph Wambaugh said a couple books ago that he would never write nonfiction again since he always got sued. I'm glad he decided differently, because I really enjoyed FIRE LOVER. The writing is good, it's gripping, and a good character study, too. It does slow down a bit during the trial, but obviously the prosecuting of the crimes is going to be less rivetting than the actually comitting of the crimes. An inadvertant red herring is thrown into the mix, that disappoints in the end. But Wambaugh couldn't change the facts just to suit me. But overall a fine book. I thought the GOLDEN ORANGE was so bad, I'd given up on Wambaugh and didn't bother to read FINNEGAN'S WEEK. But I'm glad I bothered to read FIRE LOVER. In reference to a previous comment of why didn't Wambaugh include photos and diagrams; Wambaugh has always based the style of his nonfiction books on Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD. When Wambaugh asked Capote why he didn't include photos, Capote said he wanted IN COLD BLOOD to read like novel, and have the narrative alone serve the reader, and Wambaugh has followed Capote's lead ever since.

I have always enjoyed Joseph Wambaugh. It seems a few years ago, he went through a "dark" period when his books were almost if not actually depressing. But "Fire Lover" is a very good book. What I like about Wambaugh is his insight into people and organizations. The interplay between the police departments, the fire departsments, the Federal Arson invesigators, etc, is very very interesting. Fire lover is a true story about a serial arsonist who is also the arson investigator for Glendale, California. He may have been the most prolific arsonist of the 20th century.

My only complaint is that the trial part of the book might be too long. But as usual, Wambaugh shows his insights into how the system works, or sometimes does not work. The system worked here, but it was a very long journey.

I think over the writing career of Joseph Wambaugh, we owe him a debt for telling us outsiders how police departments and now fire departments actually work. I feel we owe them a debt that they do work. The book is a very good read.

It takes each and every rumor prior to the day of its original writing and rips it to shreds.
Don't believe me? The proof is right here, in the reviews.
Notice how most all of the people that rated this book badly have their own apparent agendas. ... .
This book isn't for people with agendas. This book is for people who desire the facts. And you would think that makes it less exciting, but quite the opposite - outside of UFO sightings, no topic has been more sensationalistically covered than the JFK assassination, and that leaves the average person eventually wanting to know what the truth really is. ...
This book is also especially useful if you want to get a thorough background into Lee Harvey Oswald, his wife, and Jack Ruby. These people are usually given a paragraph or two of biography in the supermarket checkout books on JFK. But this book treats them properly - and you readers won't be disappointed.
This book methodically takes out theories and rumors and refutes them with evidence - many of them with short work. Any and every substantiated rumor or theory presented in JFK is utterly refuted. One reader wrote critically about a discomfort with the spasm theory, but no spasm theory is required actually - Newton's second law applied towards the ballistic reaction to the point of entry and exit adequately explain the tape, refute the grassy knoll, are repeatedly emphasized in this book, and all this is done without any need for a discussion on spasms.
Unfortunately, what this book probably doesn't do is refute new twists and spins of the JFK theorists since its original printing. In the past 2 months there have been new conspiracy theories, complete with "witness" accounts, which, although contradict *much* of the *prior *consipiracy theories publicized, are nevertheless presented as the current de facto conspiracy theory of the day. This somewhat new consipiracy spin is much in part to THIS BOOK and others like it, whose proof has slowly been tested, video taped, computer generated, and made available to general public, leaving a conspiracy theory vacuum which has only recently started to be refilled.
Therefore, this book is landmark not only due to how well it is written, documented, and presented, but for the mere fact that it has caused a total shift in the whole tabloid consipracy theory book market: read one a year before this book was published and read one now, and you will see the difference.
Read this book, and you will know the real scientific facts and be able to see through falsehoods and sensationalistic rumor presented as fact. Next time you watch a hyped-up JFK conspiracy documentary for the masses, you will feel like you are backstage at a puppet show.

Posner's "Case Closed" reads like a brilliantly prepared prosecutor's summation of the case against Lee Harvey Oswald. Most conspiracy theorists treat Oswald as an irrelevant cypher. He was the one guy they're all sure didn't kill Kennedy, so they virtually ignore his past. Posner takes a long hard look at Oswald the person and finds a violent, egotistical loner, disliked by most who knew him, largely ignored by the American Communists with whom he tried desperately to ingratiate himself with. His defection to the Soviet Union was almost rejected by the Soviets, whose opinion of Oswald was no better than that of those who knew him in America.

Posner creates a convincing portrait of a small, bitter, violent man who, by 11/22/1963, was a failure as a husband, father and as the revolutionary he saw himself to be. He had already failed to assassinate General Walker several months. The Kennedy motorcade gave Oswald one last chance to prove himself as a revolutionary, after having been rebuffed in his attempts to defect to Cuba.

Posner also give us a vivid portrait of Jack Ruby as a small-time hustler, a glory-seeking braggart who was too much of a bigmouth to be a member of any conspiracy, much less one to kill a president. If any one of several circumstances, completely out of Ruby's control, had happened even slightly differently, he would have missed his chance to kill Oswald.

We also get an unvarnished look at Jim Garrison, the corrupt and publicity-hungry DA who probably went after Clay Shaw to deflect media attention from his own legal problems.

Posner convincingly discredits almost all of the sources that conspiracy theorists accept as gospel and raises serious questions about the rest.

His examination of the event surrounding the actual assassination makes a few things unmistakably clear:

* The Manlicher-Carcano 6.5mm rifle was a far better rifle than conspiracy theorists would have us believe, more than capable of hitting the targets Oswald had to hit.

* The Zapruder film establishes that Oswald had about 8 to 8.6 seconds to get off three shots, with about 3 seconds between shots 1 and 2 and five more seconds to the final head shot.

* While not a great marksman by Marine standards, Oswald was sufficiently skilled with a rifle to do the shooting required in the time allotted.

* Kennedy and Connally were hit simultaneously by the second shot.

* The tumbling trajectory of the anything-but-pristine second bullet could easily have caused all of the wounds to Kennedy and Connally that the Warren Commission said it did,

* The movement of Kennedy after the fatal headshot was completely consistent with someone being hit from behind (as are the wounds to Kennedy's skull).

Whatever you do, don't take my word for it. Read "Cased Closed" and decide for yourself. I challenge anyone with an open mind to read this book and come to any conclusion other than that Oswald acted alone.

This is an absolutely brilliant book, written by a clear-thinking logical human being. If you still believe that a conspiracy existed after reading this book, then you desperately, desperately, desperately WANT a conspiracy to have existed. I used to believe a conspiracy existed. But then I used to wonder, how did the cops know to look for Oswald right after the assassination? I mean, did it just pop into their heads that for SOME reason a person who looked like Oswald was the assassin? The conspiracy theorists never addressed this point. I had to read CASE CLOSED to find out that the reason the cops looked for Oswald is that there was an eye-witness (visible in photos of Dealy Plaza that day) who SAW Oswald in the window of the book depository firing away!!! He immediately went to the police and told them Oswald's description. The conspiracy theorists willfully ignore this eye-witness, because he utterly blows holes in their theories. (And, yes, he didn't pick Oswald out of a line-up later. But he was--ironically--afraid that Oswald was part of conspiracy and that he would be killed if he picked him. But later he admitted that Oswald was the one he saw firing the shots.) And there were OTHER eye-witnesses that saw Oswald in the window, and who saw, too, the gun fired from that window. If you are a logical, clear-thinker who wants to know how JFK was killed, then read this book. If you believe there was a conspiracy after reading this book, then God help you. I don't envy your paranoid, illogical, low IQ head. In fact, I would bet a million dollars that the average IQ of those who believe the conclusions in this book is higher than those who don't. Because I know I would end up a million dollars richer. READ THIS BOOK.

I must say that Jim Hougan's Kingdom Come was one of the finest thrillers I have read in years, and I read alot! about 3 books a week. First Horseman kept my interest, was nicely paced and well written. The MAJOR flaw was the utter stupidity of Frank Daly- the main character. He seemed to be far too naive for a "veteran journalist" For example, when he sees a cult member going through his car, her explanation is , he left his lights on.
And he buys that!!!! Come on now!!! He knows he is battling a very vindictive and dangerous cult and seems utterly incapable of putting 2 and 2 together when it comes to obvious things, throughout the entire book. So much so, that the reader loses confidence in him and cannot identify, because nobody with half a brain would be so gullible. This flaw is repeated throughout the book. Also, Daly is directly responsible for the "microwaving death" of a young student, yet doesnt express any guilt, another disjointed example of a non-too believable lead character. This may seem picky, but when one reads a thriller, it becomes increasingly annoying- so much so that you want to reach into the pages and slap some sense into the so called investigative reporter.

This book contains all the things that scare us all in real life: North Korea, Cult, Epidemics, potential war, etc. With all those factors, the book could have been more stimulating if the author John Case was more focus. I wish Case was more concentrated on vividly following the main plot. The story seemed out of focused in the middle of the story. The 375 pages could have been trimed down to 300 pages with more focused and direct writing.

Tasi-ko, a small North Korean town, is under siege by what the visiting doctor called the "Spanish Lady". Soon afterward, a plane destroys everyone in the town except Kang, who happened to be outside the area seeking help. Kang escapes to South Korea and explains to the authorities what happened to his town. Eighty years ago, the "Spanish Lady" killed thirty million people and now it is back.

Washington Post reporter Frank Daley is looking forward to joining the scientific expedition heading to the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen for what could be a major part of the story of the year. The team will try to recover strains of the "Spanish Lady" from some deceased minors, allegedly preserved by the frozen tundra. Frank misses the trip north due to a storm, but catches up with the ship and crew on their return. However, everyone seems frightened and no one will talk about what they found on the island. The obstinate Frank keeps digging in hope of finding a deep throat, but instead he learns that Armageddon may be just around the corner.

THE FIRST HORSEMAN is a first rate biomedical thriller that will become one of the top novels of the year. With our shrinking world, the story line could have come off of yesterday's headlines. The novel highlights the return of a pandemic outbreak that shook the planet eight decades ago and could come back even deadlier than before. With this book and THE GENESIS CODE, John Case makes a case that he might just be the leader of modern day biomedical thrillers.

Harriet Klausner

I find it challenging to review this book, because it has some outstanding points in it. At the same time, the author's philosophy is one that I strongly diagree with based on many years of consulting experience and research. Whenever Mr. Dunlap is talking about the procrastination, wishful thinking, and "do nothing" approach of the managements he followed, Mr. Dunlap is superb. I have met some of these people, and also found their management styles to be deficient. Management has responsiblity to look, listen, and sense how well it is serving its customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, and the communities the company services. Having diagnosed what needs to be done, good management then does something effective to make a change. Then management monitors the results and keeps making changes, until the correct outcomes follow. The people who preceded Mr. Dunlap seemed to have lived in a fairy tale world of reorganizing the internal perceptions and jobs, but doing little to affect the world external to the corporation. To anyone who wants to see how management can delude itself, Mr. Dunlap has given us valuable case histories. On the other hand, I think he is totally wrong in putting shareholders first (even if we assume that shareholders deserve a greater reward than any other stakeholder group). My experience has been that shareholders make much more money (near-term and long-term) when all stakeholder groups prosper. For example, you can make more money for shareholders by creating better products and services than you can by just reducing costs in the near-term. Our research has shown that the vast majority of companies that do large cost reductions like those Mr. Dunlap has done underperform the stock market compared to industry peers (and the market averages) after 18 months has passed. I think Mr. Dunlap was wise to sell his businesses as soon as possible after the cost reductions were over. A different management style was then needed to create longer-term and larger prosperity for shareholders. I, too, have worked in the paper industry (as a consultant) and I find the same principles apply in paper as elsewhere: There are ways to create more for everyone. But first, you have to look for them. In his haste, I fear that Mr. Dunlap has missed seeing the larger opportunity for his investors. For example, the best reason to achieve a higher stock price is to then use that stock price to create even more advantages for the shareholders (such as buying new resources less expensively, having more financial flexibility to pursue opportunities, and growing earnings and cash flow faster). If you would like to know more about this point, read my article in the Fall 1998 issue of DIRECTORS & BOARDS called "The Benefits of Having a Higher Stock Price."

The only reason this book doesn't merit a full five stars is its relentless tone of braggadocio and self-promotion. Yes, Al Dunlap did a good thing. He turned around a company and channeled the money to the shareholders, but let's not go overboard. He didn't win a war, or find a cure for a disease, or create a beautiful work of art. He just did the job he was paid to do, and he did it well. When he plasters his face four times on the cover of his book and talks about his work with words like "revolution" and "conquest", it's too much. It makes me think he's got a publicist telling him what to do. Hubris, overweening pride, has from ancient times been a trait that wise men and women were taught to avoid. Dunlap is probably a wise man, so he should dump whoever's urging him to, like a rooster, take credit for the sunrise.

That said, I can go on to the ideas in the book, which are very good and long overdue. First, simplicity. Dunlap says it several times: business is simple. Contrary to what the gurus and B-school touts would have you believe, business is not rocket science. Business is the part that comes after rocket science, when you try to make rockets as cheap as you can and sell as many as you can at the highest possible price. In Dunlap's case, paper had already been invented. It just needed to be marketed and sold at a profit. An opulent headquarters and an elitist bureaucracy did nothing to attain that goal. So Dunlap fired most of the managerial class and sold the headquarters. Simple. He then sold all of the companies in the Scott conglomerate that didn't have any relation to tissue paper. Then he dumped most of the consultants because, he reasoned, why would a high-priced so-and-so know more about running a paper company than a person who'd spent years working in a paper company?

One of Dunlap's greatest strengths is his common sense. He was able to see, and had the nerve to say, that Scott's consultants were too brainy and pricey for the tissue paper business, and that Scott executives could work in less luxurious offices. He was able to see that a power plant was not a sensible part of a paper products company. Most important, he was able to see that Scott was not serving the people who owned it. None of these things are profound insights, they're just common sense.

It is the core of Dunlap's philosophy that I find most agreeable. The job of the employee, whether great or small, is to enhance the value of the shares of the company. Dunlap blasts away at the fashionable notions that one by one have replaced the idea that the goal of a company is to make a buck for the people who invest in it. Many of his critics believe the object of a company is to provide a steady income and benefits package to its employees. Not so, says Dunlap. Those things are secondary to a company's mission. They only make their income and benefits because the owners put up their money in the first place. The owners deserve priority. Others believe a company is a vehicle for social change, something akin to a legislature or philanthropic foundation. In this view, an executive is a mere conduit for the money which must flow from consumers to company and eventually to the institutionalized panhandlers known as fund-raisers. This class, which includes everything from college presidents and grant "writers" to fundamentalist preachers and social activists, has come to believe that they are the proper beneficiaries of corporate profit. Incredible to relate, so do some CEOs! Dunlap went into Scott with his chainsaw, and severed the link between them and his company. It's not that greed is good and charity is for suckers, as Hollywood would have us believe is the credo of business. It's that charity is the responsibility of the individual.

Dunlap doesn't mind executives doling out largesse to charity, as long as it happens after shareholders have been served.

The logical thing to do is to make sure your executives are shareholders. In this, Dunlap put his money where his mouth was. Upon becoming CEO of Scott, he invested $4 million of his own money in Scott stock. Then he summoned all the executives who hadn't been fired, and ordered them to invest heavily in Scott. By making sure his executives were shareholders, he assured himself that they would keep the shareholders interests foremost.

After these drastic steps were taken, the rest appears to have been easy. Whether it really was easy, and whether the drastic steps were easy, we may never know. Mean Business makes it sound like going into a corporation and changing deeply-rooted habits is like George Patton going in and whipping the US Army into shape. The book makes no mention of any opposition to Chainsaw Al that lasted any longer than a few minutes. Employees and directors were dismissed by the hundred, assets were sold, habits were changed, and never once did Dunlap receive a setback of any kind. It is marvelous if true. But I suspect some has gone untold in the interest of creating a legend.

It may be that the story of Sunbeam and Dunlap, if ever told, will be more interesting than Scott and Dunlap. For as Bill Clinton illustrates, an egomaniac is far more interesting when squirming than when trumpeting.

Having read many reviews of the book, I began it thinking it would be everything that I do not believe in. I was wrong. Al Dunlop's style is not one I admire, approve of or emulate. However, as a straight cost cutter there is probably no one better. The problem is that after cuttiing costs, most businesses want to stay alive and grow. When Mr. Dunlop is finished, there is only a business to sell. Through Share Price Growth 100, we now know that there are ways to significantly grow stock price, have very happy shareholders and manage costs as a core competency. We can now have very happy shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers and the communities in which our businesses operate. There are now real 2,000 percent solutions to most business stalls.