This is an outstanding book for those folks in manufacturing who are starting out on their "Lean" journey. The book teaches the uninitiated an original thinker's way of recognizing "waste" in manufacturing, and often, how to deal with that waste. Taiichi Ohno took a "shipload" of this book with him to Japan in the '50s and made sure that every Toyota engineer read the book. The rest is history as to how Toyota packaged this information for the rest of the world, including the United States, in its now famous "7 wastes of manufacturing." You will enjoy the book and learn what an outstanding visionary Henry Ford really was.

For some reason, this is one of my favorites of the Colored Fairy Books edited by Andrew Lang. Once again, Lang includes tales from many cultures including The Boys with the Golden Stars, The Envious Neighbor, The Fairy of the Dawn, The Finest Liar in the World, The Story of a Gazelle, The Girl Who Pretended To Be a Boy, The Grateful Prince and many others. I am also a fan of H. J. Ford's illustrations. Be sure to admire them and wonder at the power of black and white. END

With tales such as The Blue Mountains, The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership, The Dragon and His Grandmother, Fairer-than-a-Fairy, The Flower Queen's Daughter, The Glass Axe, How To Tell a True Princess, and many others how can anyone not find this book fun to read? Once again, Lang edits a book full of fairy tales from many lands that will entertain children and adults. The black and white illustrations are also superb.

Donn Werling writes about little-known aspects of Ford's life, especially his home life, so for "Fordophiles" the book is interesting. But it assumes a lot of knowledge about Ford, and often does not explain rather obscure references. The writing is inconsistent, sometimes rambling. If you are looking for a basic history of Ford's life, this is not the book for you. If you are an enthusiast who wants to know more interesting factoids, and are willing to wade through to find them, then get this book.

Donn Werling's book presents a different view of Henry Ford. This book presumes a working knowledge of Henry Ford and all of what he was about. It is a "thinking man's" perspective approach. Mr. Werling is the director of the Henry Ford Estate and takes his approach to Henry Ford as not just a job, but as a truly interested person. It is well worth the investment of your money in buying the book and of your time in reading it.
Rich Jonas-Schererville, IN

Wirling masterfully writes of a historic man whose life affected each of ours. Utilizing one of Ford's favorite places, the hearth, Wirling spins this industrialist's story around song and story recreating history in a simple, yet profound way.

Ford is ever the energetic industrialist, yet his agriarian roots constantly play out. Wirling's style of writing this book fits so well this orientation of Mr. Ford. Delightful read which displays the many interests of this man who was so prominent in many disciplines besides the auto sector that so prominently bears his influence. Delightful work.

The book , " The Devils' swing", is a book that captures the readers interest in the story and that interest increases as the plot goes deeper and deeper in the lives of John Kimbell, the principal character and his drug smuggling buddies. One can tell that the book is written from a person that has been in the real world of drug trafficking and lived to tell about it. I liked the moral ending and also the characters in the book. Just ordinary guys caught up in things way over their heads,and running for their lives .

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. It has a nice pace to it, the characters are well developed and it captures some of the romance of the region. It is a good story with a thought provoking ending.

This book rings well from someone who actually knows how the world of drug smuggling works. Ford does a nice job of keeping the reader interested in the characters and story-line. A recommended read for people who like to know the 'real deal'.

Fans of Tudor history will enjoy this meaty volume which delivers a very different take on the life of Queen Katherine Howard...she is hardly the hysterical and promiscuous girl so often depicted. Especially interesting characterizations of "Bloody" Mary Tudor and Henry VIII, as well. Strictly for fans of the subject, however, or otherwise tedious reading.

Ford Madox Ford's "The Fifth Queen" - actually a collection of three separate novels - is a fictionalized account of the fifth wife of England's Henry VIII, Katharine Howard. As A.S. Byatt explains in her Introduction, "This figure bears little relation to what we have about the real Katharine . . ." and thus the reader should be conscious that Ford's Katharine - a young, pretty, pious woman who yearns for a return to Catholicism after Henry's split with Rome - is strictly fictional. That said, the only real failure of this work is that Katharine is the least appealing, least interesting character; we first meet her as a dispossessed ingenue seeking entrance to Henry's court around the time of his disasterous fourth marriage to Anne of Cleves, and it is this description which will follow her throughout the book. Even as she becomes Queen, it is almost by accident, surviving the machinations of Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal and the recklessness of her devoted cousin Culpepper. She is Queen by default. She constantly protests that all she seeks is a Catholic England - the "old ways" - and yet throughout she resigns herself to letting events happen to her, as if she cannot control the consequences of her own life. Indeed, her final speech to Henry where she confesses to an adultery which did not occur, becomes her last fatal act of passivity, for which she pays with her life. She cannot see that there are those who wish to help her and that her naive, narcissistic piety does not have to be her ruin. What holds these novels together is the rich supporting cast: the aforementioned Cromwell, who has his own sovereign Protestant image of England, free from the entanglements of Rome. There is the brooding Princess Mary, Henry's daughter by his first wife, who knows how to carry a grudge for her mother's divorce, the super-spy Throckmorton, the lecherous Magister Udal and more. Ford uses Katharine to show that the blind commitment to an ideal - any ideal - will only result in failure, that this world is more than ideas and faiths, but of people who are imperfect, people who will fail. It is a world five hundred years in the past, but it is also our own.

Intrigue and romance in the court of Henry VIII
Katherine Howard, armed only with education, wit and honesty, becomes the Fifth Queen, Henry VIII's fifth wife in this amazing historical trilogy. The plot-ridden court comes to vivid life as everyone high and low maneuvers for advantage. Everyone except Katherine Howard, whose unwillingness to scheme will make her queen and defenseless at the same moment. Even knowing the general story this is a fascinating and occasionally shocking novel, with a stunning ending...

I read this book in the mid '50s. I agree that a Henry Ford buff will find this interesting reading. But this book is interesting to me for another reason. My grandfather worked for Ford Motor for years, and then for the Henry Ford Museum until he retired about 1952. From time to time he would see Mr. Ford. He told us that the Ford family had been offended by this book and had bought up as many copies as it could lay it's hands on.

If true, that could explain why it is so difficult to get copies of the original 1951 Gold Medal Book publication today.

After the pages of his original copy fell out of their binding , he stacked the leaves, drilled holes thru the margin cover-to-cover, and bound them all together with two pieces of string. When he died (1958), his copy passed into my mother's hands. About four years ago, it came into mine.

I was fortunate to stumble on another copy at a garage sale in the early '90s (for $.25). Also fortunately, it's binding is still pretty-much in tact. It's the only other copy that I've ever seen.

Harry Bennett's story of his life as Henry Ford's right hand man. Bennett served as Henry Ford's assistant for many years - almost running Ford Motor Company at times. Hated by the majority of the Ford family and even by many Ford employees; nevertheless, Bennett seemed to have unequalled power within the organization. This is his account of his role in the automobile manufacturer's interesting history and struggle's with the Ford family. Written years after his retirement from Ford Motor Company. Interesting reading but keep in mind that this is Bennett's story and could be considered one-sided.

Why hasn't anyone found me this book?

I am bitterly disappointed with Douglas Brinkley's history of the Ford Motor Company, "Wheels For The World".
By way of background, my 84 year-old father worked for Ford Motor his entire life, starting at the Henry Ford Trade School in 1933 as a student and retiring as divisional manager in 1980. I worked for the Company during college summers as a vacation replacement secretary and later in Ford's Marketing Division.
What's wrong with the Brinkley book? It's sloppy. Whoever researched the quotes from long-time executives, like L.E. Briggs, the company's treasurer in the 1940s and 1950s, apparently didn't have the inclination to check company payroll records and give this person a first name -- "Leon" in this case -- or any substantive background so that the reader can better understand the context of his quotes.
It's sloppy in that instead of doing primary research by interviewing all of the living Whiz Kids, Brinkley only interviews the most prominent. He refers to other published works on the Whiz Kids for the majority of his information.
Many key retired executives at the rank of executive vice-president or higher, still living, who would have given this book the analysis and substance it lacks are noticeably missing.
Other people quoted in the book -- like Max Jurosek, who worked with my dad -- aren't listed in the index.
J. Edward Lundy's significant role in developing the Company's first professional finance staff -- that served as a prototype for most American corporations post-World War II -- isn't mentioned at all, nor are the effects of this development. Other important episodes in the Company's history are missing -- like the tampering of pollution control devices during EPA testing in Nevada in the 1970s, as well as payment of illegal monies to foreign governments during this period and the ramifications of those actions.
This is definitely not in the same class as the three-volume Allan Nevins-Frank Hill history of the Company, which ends in 1962. Brinkley's book is lacking any creative synthesis of information at hand. It lacks heart or soul. No wonder it's not on the best seller lists in Detroit.
The definitive work on Ford Motor, particularly post-1962, is still waiting to be written.

I've never read a corporate history before. But I saw an excerpt dealing with the Model-T in "American Heritage" magazine and was immediately hooked.

Douglas Brinkley parlays his well-honed historical research skills with an obvious passion for cars and a gift for storytelling in this excellent account of the first century of the Ford Motor Company. The history -- written with the encouragement and cooperation of Ford and particularly its CEO, Bill Ford, Jr -- is a "warts and all" presentation of Ford Motor's out-szed impact on the 20th Century.

The first two-thirds of the book, devoted to the life of Henry Ford, is by far the most interesting. We see a master promoter who had a penchant for co-opting the best ideas of others and for purging the best minds around him. He was also filled with abundant contradications -- the best friend of the "working man" (he summarily doubled wages with the stroke of a pen) who later stood by as his organization violently repressed the budding union movement; the vile anti-semitic (Hitler adopted some of his pronouncements) who was also ahead of his time in minority hiring; a committed (often irrational) pacificist who nevertheless took advantage of military contracts during both world wars; the pioneer who did as much as anyone to advance the industrial age as well as the spread of suburban sprawl, all the while clinging to the quixotic belief that America's redemption lie in a return to the rustic origins of his youth. The list could go on.

The book loses some of its narrative energy in the final chapter (ironically titled, "Momentum"), which is mostly a desultory account of the Ford Explorer tire recall imbroglio as well as a catalog of recent Ford marketing and advertising initiatives. Also, it is obvious that Brinkley finds Bill Ford, Jr. a kindred spirit, but his portrayal of the current Ford CEO is a little too fawning for my taste. For these reasons, I downgraded the book to a four-star rating.

Nevertheless, readers looking for a better understanding of America in the 20th Century will find this book most enjoyable.

This is the story of four men: Henry, Edsel, Henry II and Bill Ford. These four men built and guided Ford Motor Co. to where it is today. It is also the story of the many men who also shaped Ford but ultimately were tossed aside.

This book is a treasure trove of information. For instance, who knew that Cadillac had its roots at Ford? Who knew that the auto industry was so tied in together? The Dodge Brothers helped finance Ford. An executive left Ford and started buying up other car makers to form General Motors. The man brought in to add professional engineering left Ford to found Cadillac and then left there to found Lincoln, which Ford bought and brought this same man back to Ford. Such revelations will have you starting many conversations with, "Did you know . . .?"

Dr. Brinkley's work is not perfect, though. Not surprisingly, Henry Ford is the giant of the book and most ink is given to him. However, the 70's, 80's and 90's receive almost a summary treatment. Also, not enough time is given to the cultural shift to SUVs and how Ford moved from a car company that had a truck division to a truck maker that also happens to sell cars.

Most disappointingly, the book has too few pictures. Dr. Brinkley has strong descriptive powers that one wants to see the car or the plant or the person he is describing, but the pictures aren't there. If the Taurus is so important to Ford, especially in terms of styling, why not include a picture of the first model?

In the end, this book is a great read. One cheers for Ford when it triumphs and worries about it when it falters. Dr. Brinkley clearly loves Ford: the company, the cars and the men. His work is a labor of love.

YES - The essential facts put forward by Baldwin are correct: Ford was a major anti-semite and he gave money to the German Nazis, helping them into power.

Yet, Baldwin's research is pathetic... a great deal of it was his imagination. He fails to present facts put forward by Kurt Ludecke's I KNEW HITLER; or Bennett's WE NEVER CALLED HIM HENRY; with any accuracy - he simply makes up what he wants.

For example, Baldwin states that the day after Nazi fund raiser Kurt Ludecke visited Ford, and Ludecke was turned away, a telegram to Lukecke arrived the NEXT DAY stating that Ford wouldn't give money through Ludecke to Hitler. Yet - READ Ludecke's I KNEW HITLER - the only primary source available on Ludecke/Ford. In this ONLY first hand account, Ludecke writes that several WEEKS (not ONE day) passed between his meeting with Ford and arrival of the telegram in question.

Baldwin has failed here as he does throughout the book to provide an accurate account of events. He makes no mention of the difference in Ludecke's primary source account and his own secondary account. Baldwin has shown himself as incompetent.

I have researched this subject for over 2 years. Baldwin makes a
serious error on virtually every page. His errors show an incredible degree of sloppy research. He seems to have only half-read his sources. His book is a joke as a serious work on Ford, anti-semitism, German inter-war history, and Hitler A far, far, better book is Albert Lee's Henry Ford and the Jews (1980). Interestingly, in the forward of Baldwin's book he writes that he put Lee's book (the one with the SAME title which inspired him) on the "shelf" while writing his book. YET, he quotes Albert Lee's: Henry Ford And The Jews, often throughout his book. How on the shelf could that book have been, since he was citing it so often?

Baldwin is a professor of poetry, not a historian, and his lack of understanding of the sort of research that goes into such a work is evident to anyone who has bothered to read the sources he cites. Baldwin constantly takes liberties; invents events that didn't happen; embellishes, and novelizes. He fails to demonstrate that his work is anything but the work of someone who should stay with what he has done very well in the past: writing books on poetry.

This is, bottom line, an appallingly ill-researched book - one of the worst I've ever seen that claims to be a serious work.

The only thing good that can be said about this book is that it helped to bring Henry Ford's support of anti-semitism, Nazis and so forth to the public's attention - but that is all.

If the material were not so important to discuss, I would give this book 1 star. As it is, I give it 2 because he did make an attempt (albeit pathetic, as it is) to take on a very hot subject.

Again... the broad facts in Baldwin's book are very correct, but the specifics are nearly all wrong. Baldwin wrote a historical fiction novel masquarading as a historiograhy.

Bottom line: get Albert Lee's Henry Ford and the Jews (1980) instead of this ill-researched "novel."

History must be revised when any new and accurate information appears. Neil Baldwin's book, "Henry Ford And The Jews The Mass Production Of Hate", utilizes some information that was only opened from archives in March of 2001. Further, no matter how much time may pass, history as portrayed in this book must always be available to new generations of readers. I believe that the darker aspects of this country's or any nation's history, must be documented accurately and fairly. Reality has demonstrated that with the passage of time facts are forgotten, and become the target for revisionists who replace history with fiction. Historical events like The Holocaust have been defended in court within the last 2 years. The defense was required to prove The Holocaust took place.

Mr. Baldwin has documented the actions of one of the most influential businessmen of the 20th Century. Mr. Henry Ford's achievements in the production of his cars are a fact of history. Mr. Ford was a talented man, and had he confined himself to what he was competent to conduct, his memory would be a very different one. Mr. Ford is portrayed in this book by a wide variety of sources as a man who was amazingly ill informed, a man who placed no value on education, was a tyrant to those who made his fortune, and a man who had the distinction of having his portrait on the wall of Adolph Hitler's Office. Like other notable names in American History he accepted the highest honor bestowed on a non-German by Hitler. Another recipient Charles Lindbergh could claim he had no idea he was to be presented with the, "Honor". Mr. Ford accepted his on the occasion of his birthday with 1500 invited guests. Another famous recipient of the award was Mr. Thomas Watson of IBM fame. Of the 3 men, only the latter had the common sense to return the medal. Mr. Ford proudly stood for photographs of his presentation on July 30, 1938. At this point there is no conceivable defense for claiming not to know what Hitler was about.

Mr. Ford claimed to hate those who were profiteers of war. His views changed as Ford operated in Germany throughout World War II producing tens of thousands of military trucks and cars, and unlike other companies, Ford was never nationalized, and retained majority ownership throughout the war. As the Nazi's invaded other nations they handed the production of cars over to Ford.

It helps to bring the idea of how influential this man was forward in time. Today you would need to take the head of one of the world's largest companies, and then imagine his conducting himself as Ford did. Today it is inconceivable that a person could buy a newspaper for the express purpose of spreading Anti-Semitic hatred, that a person could publish countless thousands of copies of, "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion", and continue to claim they were anything but the fiction they were. But this is what he did, for decades. He continually tried to force anyone who bought one of his cars to buy a subscription to his paper; he demanded that dealers tie his anti-Semitism to every sale.

Mr. Ford is often spoken of when better wages are discussed during his period in manufacturing history. What I had not read before was the private portion of the company that would inspect the homes and personal habits of workers to qualify them for this added pay. A worker was subject to any invasion of privacy to ensure he lived, as Ford deemed appropriate. Henry Ford never did anything that was not in his interest, and was not tangled in strings for those who would accept his "largesse".

The author was catalyzed to pursue this subject when The Ford Motor Company underwrote all the funds that would have been generated by selling commercials when, "Schindler's List", was first aired on television. This is the new Ford Company that came about almost immediately upon the founder's death. The present company in no way should be blamed for the sins of its founder, however after half a century has passed, the need to make amends is clearly still felt.

The book tells a tragic story of events that took place not so long ago. Events that will always be relevant, should always be available, and never forgotten.

While Henry Ford's anti-Semitism was not unknown before Neil Baldwin's terrific new book, it was always considered a small aberration of personality, nothing to stop Ford from keeping his valued place in American history. No longer.

In Baldwin's devastating account of the "Flivver King's" biases and how they grew, the reader is invited not merely to understand Henry Ford but the culture around him that fostered and nurtured his prejudices.

The cast of characters in this astounding book, from the hateful men in Ford's inner sanctuum to the leaders of American Jewry, are a fascinating lot. Baldwin also includes depictions of others who attempted to sway Ford from his chosen path, including the European feminist-pacifist Rosika Schwimmer and the labor leader Aaron Sapiro, whose lawsuit finally caused Ford to issue an apology for his misdeeds.

Among the most compelling facts that Baldwin has amassed are those tying Ford to the Nazi movement. I won't give away the particulars of that sordid story. Suffice it to say that America was linked more closely than we ever knew to Hitler and his henchmen, thanks to Ford's reckless behavior.

This book is much more than an embellishment of a footnote in the life of a great American: It forces a total re-evaluation of Henry Ford. Whatever his business triumphs, they have been neutralized for all time.

This is an important and timely book, gracefully written.

I just ordered a number of the Andrew Lang books from Amazon. The Blue Fairy Book arrived yesterday, and I could not have been more disappointed. It came in a very plain blue hardback. I opened it up, and NOWHERE inside is Andrew Lang mentioned, nowhere are any of the illustrations, from either of the two other versions I know. The production quality -- the paper, the binding -- is poor, and the "author" is listed throughout as "Anonymous." The publisher of this book is IndyPublish.com. I don't know the deal, or how they get listed under Andrew Lang, but I recommend that if you want a real Andrew Lang book, don't buy one of the IndyPublish books.

Andrew Lang's series of fairy-tale books are some of the fundamental children's reading of the twentieth and late nineteenth century. The stories are not "original": there's no such thing when they were almost without exception passed down orally; but they are in old, not very modernized tellings.

Many readers who have only seen or read modern, Disney-fied versions of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty or Snow-White will not recognize some of the darker twists in these tales. For example, in Sleeping Beauty, when the Prince wakes the Princess and marries her, the story is by no means over. The Prince's mother is an Ogress, whom his father married for her wealth, and it's suspected that she likes to eat little children; that "whenever she saw little children passing by, she had all the difficulty in the world to avoid falling upon them". The happy couple have two children, named Day and Morning, and the Ogress decides to dine on them one day when the Prince is away. Yes, it still has a happy ending, but Disney it isn't.

The illustrations--8 full page, plus 130 smaller ones--are all from the original 1891 edition. They're black and white woodcuts; very atmospheric, and I think most children will like them.

The only thing that might have to be explained to a child is the occasional use of vocabulary that is no longer current. Most often this is the use of "thee" and "thou"; but a few other words will crop up. However, they're usually inferable from context, and the stories are marvellous entertainment regardless.

"The Blue Fairy Book" is amazing. I am planning to collect all of Andrew Lang's color fairy tale books. It has an excellent group of stories from different fairy tale writers, including Perrault, d'Aulnoy, and Grimm. This book was originally printed in the 19th century. It has not been abridged, nor have any of the original pictures been taken out. (Be warned, they're *artistic*) These are the original, unaltered by Disney versions, and contain the nightmarish plots they were meant to have. Anyone who collects fairy tales should have this.