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Title: Riding the Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation (Great Lakes Books) by Charles K. Hyde ISBN: 0-8143-3091-6 Publisher: Wayne State University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: a major contribution to business and technological history
Comment: In many ways the most interesting of the "Big Three" automobile manufacturers, the Chrysler Corporation has seen as many ups and downs as the evocative title of this volume suggests. Charles Hyde, a professor of history at Wayne State University, has produced a thorough, scholarly, yet highly readable book on a company that was the second largest producer of automobiles in North America at several points in its long history and was nearly out of business at others. The main thread of this fascinating story begins with the formation of a new automobile company by Walter P. Chrysler in 1925 and ends shortly after the merger of Chrysler and Daimler-Benz in 1998. However, Hyde has also given us detailed coverage of the developments that led up to the formation.
This is primarily a business history with a focus on corporate management and the marketing of automobiles. It is also a study of Chrysler products and the technology that created them. Hyde is both an economic historian and an industrial archaeologist. His understanding of assembly line production and the architecture of automobile plants is second to none. He says in his preface that "The origins of this book go back to late 1980, when I took on the monumental task of documenting the sprawling Dodge Main factory complex in Hamtramck, Michigan, before its demolition."
Hyde has filled an important need by writing the definitive history of the Chrysler Corporation. This is much more than a synthesis of existing scholarship. Most of his
interpretation is based on original archival research. Among the many significant historical contributions is his coverage of Dodge Brothers, which became a key part of Chrysler in 1928. Also very impressive is Hyde's discussion of the Chrysler Airflow (1934-1937), a major advance in engineering but a failure in style and sales. He even devotes an entire chapter to Chrysler's amazingly effective shift to military production for World War II.
The fascinating characters in this book give it a vitality lacking in most business histories. Hyde provides a new look at Walter P. Chrysler, one that sometimes differs from the image that this dynamic captain of industry tried to project in his autobiography. Those who need another fix of Lee Iacocca stories will not be disappointed. We also learn a great deal about such important but often overlooked figures as Carl Breer and Virgil Exner, who had so much to do
with the form and function of Chrysler products.
Riding the Roller Coaster should be required reading for anyone with an interest in the automobile industry. Serious scholars will welcome the new information and insights that Hyde delivers in every chapter. Those who simply love cars or want to understand the business strategies that produce them will also be pleased by this fine book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Entire Chrysler story: Dodge/Plymouth/Exner/NASCAR/Up/Down..
Comment: I really like old Chrysler and especially old Dodge cars and trucks and until I read this book I hadn't read the entire company story in one book before. There are other books about Walter Chrysler and the Dodge Bros. and Lee Iacocca and their cars but not everything told together in one big story before. This book starts at the very beginning of Walter Chrysler's career when he worked sweeping the floors at the Chicago & Great Western Railroad and how he was one of the early pioneers that saw the potential of the automobile. Eventually he went to work for Buick and learned the business so well he bought his own car company.
This book also tells the curious history of the Dodge Bros. and how they worked with Henry Ford but then decided to build their own Dodge Bros. cars which Chrysler later bought out. The book covers the Great Depression and how the company managed to get through it when so many other companies failed. The author also tells how Chrysler contributed to WWII by building military equipment. I especially liked the chapters on the '50's and 60's which tells about how Chrysler needed to build dealerships in the suburbs and sun belt states to survive--I hadn't ever read that before--and how they got Virgil Exner to design their cars. I really liked the parts on Carl Kiekhaefer and NASCAR in the mid-'50s.
I kind of get tired of reading about Lee Iacocca so I mostly skipped over that part and I'm not much interested in the later Chryslers except the Viper but I thought this was a really good book about the company. It's got some statistical tables and lots of illustrations. I met the author at my library where he spoke about his book and he was very friendly and signed my book.
Rating: 2
Summary: Nothing new
Comment: This book is fine for someone who has no previous knowledge of the subject. However, for anyone who has read other materials on this topic, this book had nothing new to say, even though there was much that could be said, particularly of the post-Iacocca and post-DC merger eras.
For my money, Moritz' and Seaman's "Going For Broke" remains the best book on the history of the old Chrysler Corp., even though that book is now 23 years old.
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Title: Business Statistics on the Web: Find Them Fast-At Little or No Cost by Paula Berinstein ISBN: 091096565X Publisher: Cyberage Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Taken for a Ride: How Daimler-Benz Drove Off With Chrysler by Bill Vlasic, Bradley A. Stertz ISBN: 0060934484 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 19 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Wheel, Deal, and Steal: Deceptive Accounting, Deceitful CEOs, and Ineffective Reforms by Daniel Quinn Mills, D. Quinn Mills ISBN: 0131408046 Publisher: Financial Times/Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 11 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Essence of Capitalism: The Origins of Our Future by Humphrey McQueen ISBN: 1551642204 Publisher: Black Rose Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $28.99 |
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Title: The Actor and the Target by Declan Donnellan ISBN: 1559362197 Publisher: Theatre Communications Group Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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