The Fords
An American Epic
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- 10,99 €
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- 10,99 €
Publisher Description
In The Fords: An American Epic, Peter Collier and David Horowitz tell the riveting story of three generations of Fords, a dramatic story of conflict between fathers and sons played out against the backdrop of America’s greatest industrial empire.
The story begins with the first Henry Ford, the mechanical wizard, tinkerer and “mad genius” who drove the automobile into the heart of American life and conquered the world with it. An American Original, by the end of his life he had become an embittered crank who so possessively loved the company he built that when his son, Edsel, tried to change it to suit the changing times, Henry destroyed him. It was left to Edsel’s son Henry II to avenge him and save the Ford Motor Company in the postwar world.
From the details of the first Henry’s illicit affair and illegitimate son, to the life and loves of “Hank the Deuce” and his celebrated feud with Lee Iacocca, this is an engrossing account of a vital chapter in American history. The authors have added new material to this classic work, showing how Henry II’s line lost out to the line of his brother William Clay Ford in the quest to control this most American of companies in the twenty-first century.
In addition to The Fords, Peter Collier and David Horowitz are the authors of dynastic biographies of the Kennedys, Roosevelts, Rockefellers, and Fondas.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Collier and Horowitz (The Kennedys, The Rothschilds) vividly depict the career of Henry Ford, the quirky turn-of-the-century automobile inventor who put America on wheels with his homely everyman-type car, the Model T, in the 1920s"the first and last great giant of the auto industry.'' He appointed his only son, Edsel, head of the company but tormented him by limiting his authority, promoted anti-Semitism and hired a union-busting tough, Harry Bennett, who nearly took over the company. This saga pulls at the emotions while instructing readers about harsh business realities and human frailty as we watch Edsel's four children and numerous grandchildren contend with celebrity and great wealth, ill health, alcoholism, family jealousy, sense of failure and marital unhappiness. Finally, we're shown Henry Ford II, who after World War II assumed authority as his father never could, and become a national figure by leading the Ford Motor Company to great renewed successat a great personal price. Major ad/promo; BOMC selection; author tour.
