Choice Review
General Motors' sad, complicated story has been a rich source for books on the topic (e.g., William Holstein's Why GM Matters, CH, Nov'09, 47-1519). Readers want to know what precipitated the fall, who is responsible, and where one can place the blame. Taylor (senior editor, Fortune) has been writing about the automotive industry for more than 30 years, and he has interviewed and spent time with many of the GM players. He focuses on the executives in charge, their management styles, and their accomplishments and failures, writing with clarity and ease in a style that makes reading this brief volume effortless. Chapters include "GM at the Peak," "Cracks in GM's Edifice," "Insecure Colossus: The Roger Smith Era," and "Bob Stemple and the Crisis of '92." It is all here--bad design, too many cars, too high labor and health care costs, and some illuminating illustrations. For example, losses approached $8,000 per unit on the Cadillac Allante and $17,000 per car on the Buick Reatta (which some have nicknamed the Buick "Regretta"). Sixty to Zero documents the fall with an even journalistic keel and avoids cynicism and blame; it is certainly a welcome addition to this sad piece of automotive history. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. C. J. Myers University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
Library Journal Review
This is part breezy overview of the American auto industry and part autobiography. Taylor (senior editor, Fortune magazine), basing his work on his own decades of pieces on the industry, provides a series of character sketches of various GM top executives, essentially personifying each era of the company. At the same time, he describes his own relationship to GM, from childhood admirer to seasoned naysayer. All of this added personality and character sketching is necessary because the line of his actual thesis is so straight. What really did in GM was not rising oil prices or the recent credit crunch, but rather a fanatical devotion to the "GM Way," which prevented the company from adapting to a changing automobile market over nearly five decades. Indeed, what seems most remarkable is that GM plodded along for as long as it did. Detours into the "palace intrigues" of Ford and a thorough examination of Saturn help keep the narrative going. VERDICT Recommended for general readers who might wonder why the fate of GM was so important during the recent government bailouts. Auto aficionados will have been down this road before.-Robert Perret, Univ. of Idaho Lib., Moscow (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.