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Library Journal Review

Baida chronologically covers the history of American business from Benjamin Franklin to Donald Trump by simultaneously showing us three views of that history: the famous persons of business--Astor, Rockefeller, Ford, etc.; the popular self-help books of the day, such as Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People and how they affected the time; and the leading writers who were critics of what was going on--Thoreau, Sinclair Lewis, Galbraith, etc. In this excellent work, we are shown the spirit of America and how that spirit has changed from Franklin's views on thrift and the work ethic to an America that has become the greatest debtor nation in the world. Highly recommended for all business and American studies collections.--Michael D. Kathman, St. John's Univ., Collegeville, Minn. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

From thrift and honesty to enormous debt and main-chance ethics, American business values have spiraled downward as viewed in this ingeniously conceived and brightly executed social history by business journalist Baida. To chockfull profiles of such business giants as Astor, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Ford, Ogilvy and Watson, he adds a chorus of ``dissenting voices,'' those of Melville, Thoreau, Twain, Sinclair Lewis, Ralph Nader and John Kenneth Galbraith, limning the interaction of economic forces and popular literature. Franklin's work-and-save precepts, Huck Finn's insouciance and Horatio Alger's cult of character are displaced by the Dale Carnegie cult of personality, followed by Arthur Miller's salesman Willy Loman, while IBM's ``Sell and Serve'' policy is countered by Union Carbide's Bhopal mentality. All, in the author's narrative, leads to the U.S. deficit, and armaments build-up, to ``junk bond'' and credit card heaven and sweet songs like Robert Ringer's injunction to ``forget the `moral' standards,'' to Michael Korda's how-to on getting and using personal power. Baida is careful not to preach; he doesn't need to. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Prepublication publicity and the book's introduction cite inspiration based on and a comparison to Matthew Josephson's Robber Barons, but Baida's book is part Josephson's 1934 classic (which it inevitably overlaps) and part Everybody's Business: An Almanac (Harper, 1980). Baida, a business writer for publications ranging from the Wall Street Journal to American Heritage, offers an entertaining and informative biographic medley in which the likes of Benjamin Franklin, John Jacob Astor, Henry Thoreau, Herman Melville, Andrew and Dale Carnegie, Sinclair and John L. Lewis, and David Ogilvy rub shoulders. The result shows how changing American social values change the way in which America does business. Notes included; to be indexed. --David Rouse