Discover New Releases Audiobooks in Business, Commerce & Economy

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Title: Applied Economics

Subtitle: Thinking Beyond Stage One: Second Edition

Author: Thomas Sowell

Narrator: Bill Wallace

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-07-09

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 290 votes

Genres: Business, Commerce & Economy

Publisher's Summary:

Applied Economics is an accessible guide to how our economic decisions develop. It explains the application of economics to major world problems, including housing, medical care, discrimination, and the economic development of nations. The book is based on an international view of economics, includes examples from around the world, and shows how certain incentives and constraints produce similar outcomes among disparate peoples and cultures.

©2009 Thomas Sowell; (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic Reviews:

"Applied Economics...is simply the must-have field guide to our economic landscape." (Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times columnist)

"Applied Economics is full of...good sense - and serves as an excellent defense against the counterproductive promises of political candidates." (Wall Street Journal)

Members Reviews:

Look at the long term...it's important!

Look to the long term...that's the main message of Applied Economics. Dr. Sowell is a master of making the complex understandable. This book covers a number of topics such as rent control, land use restrictions, and corporate tax rates. He follows each through to its logical conclusion, pointing out that politicians often cast votes with an eye only on the current election cycle. We need to make wise decisions based on sound facts, not emotion or sound bytes. Dr. Sowell is a very wise man, and a wonderfully effective teacher! Any book he writes is worth reading! 100 percent!!!!

Comprehensive and yet easy to listen to

An in depth and well articulated work on the goings on of the American economy. Despite the comments of other reviewers, this book does not support the 'right wing' Rebuplican agenda like books by Glen Beck or Ann Coulter might. Rather, Sowell focuses on economic facts and calls members of both political parties for actions taht tend to damage economic prosperity.

Also, unlike the political cheerleader authors, Sowell's works are more educational in nature, and spend lest time bashing anyone than they do explaining actions and consequences. While he certainly notes that politicians (on both sides) tend to act against the best long term interests of economic growth... he shows why they will inevitably do so, regardless of party, by outlining the incentives that govern political decisionmaking in relation to economics.

Well worth the read, regardless of your political orientation. Be warned, however, the economics discussed here is based on looking at the choices real people make rather than on studying the aggregated graphs of entire populations (ala John Keynes). It's an easy listen as well, despite the offputting title. The prose is light and isn't filled with overly academic pretention, and the narrator handles the material well.

Great Writing Poor Reading

How could the performance have been better?

While listening to this book I was impressed by the excellence of the writing but disappointed as I found myself again and again distracted by the reader. The reader seems to think it's his job to dramatize the book. In all books, especially non-fiction, the reader's influence should fade into the background so that the writing comes to the forefront. This reader almost seems to be trying to upstage the writer by continually bringing the focus back to himself.

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Title: Meltdown

Subtitle: A Look at Why the Economy Tanked and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse

Author: Thomas E. Woods

Narrator: Alan Sklar

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-03-09

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 485 votes

Genres: Business, Commerce & Economy

Publisher's Summary:

In Meltdown, best-selling author Thomas E. Woods, Jr., unearths the real causes behind the collapse of housing values and the stock market---and it turns out the culprits reside more in Washington than on Wall Street. And the trillions of dollars in federal bailouts? Our politicians' ham-handed attempts to fix the problems they themselves created will only make things much worse.

Woods, a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and winner of the 2006 Templeton Enterprise Award, busts the media myths and government spin. He explains how government intervention in the economy---from the Democratic hobby horse called Fannie Mae to affirmative action programs like the Community Redevelopment Act---actually caused the housing bubble. Most important, Woods, author of the New York Times best seller The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, traces this most recent boom-and-bust---and all such booms and busts of the past century---back to one of the most revered government institutions of all: the Federal Reserve System, which allows busybody bureaucrats and ambitious politicians to pull the strings of our financial sector and manipulate the value of the very money we use.

Meltdown, which features a foreword by Congressman Ron Paul (R - Texas), also provides a timely history lesson to counter the current clamor for a new New Deal. The Great Depression, Woods demonstrates, was only as deep and as long as it was because of the government interventions by Herbert Hoover (no free-market capitalist, despite what your high-school history teacher may have taught you) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (no savior of the American economy, in spite of what the mainstream media says). If you want to understand what caused the fi...

Critic Reviews:

"Provocative, well-written, and deserves to be read." (Catholic Historical Review)

"Well written, well researched, and the thesis put forth is well argued." (Journal of American History)

Members Reviews:

Read this book!

Forget about 'derivatives' and the other esoteric culprits for the economic collapse of 2008-2009. The real reason is much simpler than that and Woods skillfully explains why. Woods is an historian who delivers a compelling narrative that hearing, you just know he would have been one of your favorite teachers if you had been in his class.

I was so impressed by it that I have bought and given out many copies of this book. Read it. Highest reviews.

A layman's opinion

I liked how this book revealed the feds involvement. I thought it was going to be more inflammatory regarding the party politics; putting responsibility on one and ignoring the others. Thankfully it was not.

Do not buy this to hear how the republicans got us in this mess and the democrats are the ones to save us. It will take a new way of thinking from everyone involved to get out of this and as partisan as politics are today I am not sure the ppl currently serving us are up for the job.

As far as the tone of the narrator goes: I would not have been able to make it through the text version of an economics book but I really liked how the narrator handled himself. After the book I went to thomasewoods.com and listened to the author himself, I believe the sarcasm was intended.

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Title: World Wide Rave

Subtitle: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories

Author: David Meerman Scott

Narrator: Walter Dixon

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-23-09

Publisher: Gildan Media, LLC

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 82 votes

Genres: Business, Commerce & Economy

Publisher's Summary:

A World Wide Rave is when people around the world are talking about you, your company, and your products Whether you're located in San Francisco, Dubai, or Reykjavik, it's when global communities eagerly link to your stuff on the Web. It's when online buzz drives buyers to your virtual doorstep. And it's when tons of fans visit your Website and your blog because they genuinely want to be there.

Millions of people try to create something on the Web that will catch on and become a hit on YouTube, blogs, Facebook, and other online media. But you can't generate buzz without something to buzz about. Now bestselling author, David Meerman Scott explains how to produce engaging online content that people will WANT to share, triggering a "world wide rave" for your product or service.

Contact me for any questions: [email protected]

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Title: What Would Google Do?

Author: Jeff Jarvis

Narrator: Jeff Jarvis

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-27-09

Publisher: HarperAudio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1066 votes

Genres: Business, Commerce & Economy

Publisher's Summary:

In a book that's one part prophecy, one part thought experiment, one part manifesto, and one part survival manual, Internet impresario and blogging pioneer Jeff Jarvis reverse-engineers Google, the fastest-growing company in history, to discover 40 clear and straightforward rules to manage and live by.

At the same time, he illuminates the new worldview of the internet generation: how it challenges and destroys, but also opens up vast new opportunities. His findings are counterintuitive, imaginative, practical, and above all, visionary, giving readers a glimpse of how everyone and everything, from corporations to governments, nations to individuals, must evolve in the Google era.

Along the way, he looks under the hood of a car designed by its drivers, ponders a worldwide university where the students design their curriculum, envisions an airline fueled by a social network, imagines the open-source restaurant, and examines a series of industries and institutions that will soon benefit from this book's central question.

The result is an astonishing, mind-opening book that, in the end, is not about Google. It's about you.

Members Reviews:

A great place to start....

"Overall I would definitely recommend this book. I say overall, because there are times where I am just amazed at some of the revelations and correlation he builds with reference to Google and new social based business models. Other times, I flat out want to ask him if he has lost his mind.

This book opens up a plethora (word of the day) of other books related to the Internet, up-and-coming social technologies and new business concepts such as "Free as a business model". Based on Jeff's recommendations and references of sources, I now want to research and read them based on what is covered in this book. At the very least, this book is a great starting point for learning more about the future of the Internet and web based social networking."

Very useful overview of countless DOT Com topics

As the internet has emerged, some of us have been pretty on-the-ball in regards to education and knowledge. Something I found incredibly worthwhile with this book was how it speaks in such a way that both daily internet users and designers can benefit/pull info from this AND also small business owners who have basically been in the dark about the thing called the "internet"! I have had several people listen to this with me who have absolutely no idea about the internet and walked away with a much better idea of what they could do for their smaller businesses.

Change the way you think of your business

While the book covers what google does, it's more about the profound changes that the internet is making to all industries and businesses.

It uses the example of Google as best practice to make one think about ones own business.

Everyone in media, particularly those who still think content is king, should read it. But all marketing people and indeed anyone in service or sales will also benefit.

The author reading it himself adds a dimension of authority and enthusiasm. One can feel his metamorphosis from print to digital over 30 years.

Worth the read

Jarvis starts off strong and finishes well. The middle is a bit boring though... he wanders off into some examples that didn't keep my interest. Regardless, this book is well worth listening to.

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Title: Free Lunch

Subtitle: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense

Author: David Cay Johnston

Narrator: David Cay Johnston

Format: Abridged

Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-09-09

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 86 votes

Genres: Business, Commerce & Economy

Publisher's Summary:

The best-selling author of Perfectly Legal returns with a powerful new expose.

©2008 David Cay Johnston; (P)2008 Penguin

Critic Reviews:

"With clarity, conciseness, and cool, fact-saturated analysis, Mr. Johnston, the premier investigative reporter on how industry and commerce shift risks and costs to taxpayers, sends the ultimate message to all Americans - either we demand to have a say or we will continue to pay, pay, and pay." (Ralph Nader)

"Here's a shocking novel with an amazing plot. Donald Trump, Ken Lay, and George Steinbrenner all conspire to siphon billions of dollars from the American middle class. Wait - it's not a novel! It's all true! .... Johnston narrates his own work with a newscaster's tone and perspective. His direct tone keeps listeners engaged throughout." (AudioFile)

Members Reviews:

A Must Listen! Great narration!

This book documents with facts and entertaining true stories how the corporate world and their high paid lobbyists have taken over our government to enrich the few at the expense of the many. For anyone who wants to know where all our money went, this is a must read! The narration makes it all the better as it is by the author himself, and he does an excellent job. I was sad when it ended and look forward to Mr Johnston's next book.

Fair and balanced

If you despise welfare moms who keep having kids to leach off the government, wait til you read about these corporate welfare hogs. If you rush to vote politicians out of office when they're discovered taking extravagces at the taxpayers expense, wait til you read about famous wealthy folk who make a living using tax funds as their own bank.

These many shameful scams are described with careful reference to verifiable records - newspaper reports, court filings, etc. The author even takes pains to defend some of those involved where appropriate - abasent a company culture to the contrary, corporate officers are obligated to pursue the most profitable course lest they be blamed for incompetence - small town government officials don't want to see their towns become a footnote in history.

What makes this book masterful is that the author describes the scams like a journalist, as opposed to the overstated and dramatic styles that O'Reilley, Michael Moore, Limbaugh and other similar "reporters" have made fashionable.

Disturbing

At times I found the information provided so upsetting I had to turn it off. That should be taken as an ultimate compliment, considering the subject matter. What made this so interesting throughout was that the author used many different scenarios to make his point.

What our representatives have allowed to happen in tax policies, lack of oversight etc. is nothing short of criminal. If only every person in our country spent just a few hours each month listen/reading materials like this, maybe we would not all fall for the sound bites we are fed by our political representatives we would not be selling the very future of our company to the elite few.

Thank you Mr. Johnston for this very illuminating read.

Awful format

The book chapters aren't titled and are grouped into sections that do not give any information as to what is contained into each section.

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Title: The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008

Author: Paul Krugman

Narrator: Don Leslie

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-23-08

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 241 votes

Genres: Business, Commerce & Economy

Publisher's Summary:

In the years that followed, as Wall Street boomed and financial wheeler-dealers made vast profits, the international crises of the 1990s faded from memory. But now depression economics has come to America: when the great housing bubble of the mid-2000s burst, the U.S. financial system proved as vulnerable as those of developing countries caught up in earlier crises and a replay of the 1930s seems all too possible.

In this new, greatly updated edition of The Return of Depression Economics, Krugman shows how the failure of regulation to keep pace with an increasingly out-of-control financial system set the United States, and the world as a whole, up for the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. He also lays out the steps that must be taken to contain the crisis, and turn around a world economy sliding into a deep recession. Brilliantly crafted in Krugman's trademark style - lucid, lively, and supremely informed - this new edition of The Return of Depression Economics will become an instant cornerstone of the debate over how to respond to the crisis.

Members Reviews:

Buy the printed book

A very interesting analysis of the causes of and remedies for the current and historical recessions and depressions, and the actions that have been taken and could be taken to ameliorate them. However, I recommend that the book be enjoyed in hard copy rather than in audio. The material is dense, and Krugman throws out references to many technical aspects of domestic and international finance. Although Krugman states at the outset that he's trying to avoid economic jargon and abstruse economic concepts, so that a broader audience can understand his analysis, he assumes a level of understanding of the forces that operate in finance that I believe most listeners won't have.

Depressing necessity!

So much of this book, I did not want to hear. The more I wanted to turn it off, the more I kept listening. Because I spend much time in Bangkok, Thailand, chapter 3 on how crony capitalism in emerging markets really got my attention. The detailed mechanism of the '97 Asian financial crisis, which seems to be repeating itself in the US now, was cogently delineated, albeit with an attitude. Chapter 6 on hedge funds also opened my eyes to the rise and fall of money. Hear it but be prepared to turn it off only to turn it back on again!

Lucid and informative to the Nth degree

I've followed Krugman in the NYT for some time, so was much gladdened by the appearance of his work on Audible. The work requires the listener pay attention -- not as if you were defusing a bomb, but definitely more than a piece of pure fiction. The historical perspectives are truly enlightening in their own right, but as the basis for understanding the present superbly invaluable. Krugman's analysis is supported my much experience, data, and a superbly trained eye. That's why I think this work can be fairly classified as neutral in political perspective. He lets the evidence make his point and strengthen his conclusions, which makes for, in my mind, a very credible description of why we are where we are, and where we need to go next. As I said at the onset one needs to focus when listening as the work will engage one's critical listening skills if your to enjoy the work. Again, a masterful piece of historical analysis and explanation of the present.

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Title: The Tao of Warren Buffett

Author: Mary Buffett, David Clark

Narrator: Anna Fields

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-23-07

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 64 votes

Genres: Business, Commerce & Economy

Publisher's Summary:

Following in the tradition of the Tao Te Ching, that ancient Chinese classic text on human nature (as well as more popular interpretations, like the best-selling The Tao of Pooh) comes The Tao of Warren Buffett, a compendium of quotes from America's favorite businessman. Buffett's investment strategies and life philosophies are revealed in this collection of sayings, some of which have never been heard before. Warren Buffett can teach us all a few secrets of success.

©2006 Mary Buffett and David Clark; (P)2006 Tantor Media Inc.

Members Reviews:

Nice book of investment wisdom

Overall, I enjoyed the book. However, as an Option Trader, I found very little use of the book. I just enjoy hearing the intelligent wisdom of Warren Buffet. If you are a investor in equities, then this book would serve you well. The only problem I had with the book is, that it tends to repeat many of the sayings.

All in all, I recommend this book.

An insight into a value investor

This audio book was a fascinating look into the ideology of value investing. It changed my outlook on the stock market and helped to make sense of otherwise senseless market swings. If everyone invested like Mr. Buffett, there would be fewer millionaires as there would be fewer losers in the market.

Number 2 See Number 1

This review is over due by 4 years or so.

My most favorite reader, the late Ms Fields, did justice to this list of the Why's of Warren.

Excellent start to entice you to stop living on credit, only buy what you can pay for at the end of the month, and to stay out of debit.

If you don't think you can ever retire, then this is for you.

This is a simple list of why's, and a good reminder, it's never too late to start to do the right thing to make your life better.

note: it's best on the new 1.25x speed to keep your interest. Yes, like me, you may go back a bit if a single point needs repeating, but you will definitely find out the what of the what's you don't know.

Were these comments helpful?

Sound advice for every investor

Age old principles of money never fail. Great reminders, eye openers and warnings for the baby investor. Wise council for the seasoned investor.

There are nuggets of wisdom here.

Any additional comments?

First off, Buffet doesn't believe in broad portfolio diversification. He chooses single businesses and invests in them big.

When Buffet describes how he chooses his investments, he basically says: choose a lasting business (such as razor blades, soda pop, chewing gum, etc), with a strong competitive advantage, great underlying economics, buy it when it's stock price is less than it's "real value," and invest big in it. This information is presented as if it's dead simple and anyone can get rich following this advice. While I believe it's good advice, personally I feel Buffet owes a lot more of his success to luck than he'd care to admit.

Aside from my skepticism of non-diversification, there are excellent nuggets of wisdom on running a business in this book. Plus I've always been interested in how great people think, and for that this book is worth a listen, but if you're looking for sound (and more in depth) investing advice for normal people, I suggest reading "A Random Walk Down Wall Street."

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Title: Wikinomics

Subtitle: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

Author: Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams

Narrator: Alan Sklar

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-06-07

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 379 votes

Genres: Business, Commerce & Economy

Publisher's Summary:

Today, encyclopedias, jetliners, operating systems, mutual funds, and many other items are being created by teams numbering in the thousands or even millions. While some leaders fear the burgeoning growth of these massive online communities, Wikinomics proves this fear is folly. Smart firms can harness collective capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success.

A brilliant guide to one of the most profound changes of our time, Wikinomics challenges our most deeply rooted assumptions about business and will prove indispensable to anyone who wants to understand competitiveness in the 21st century.

Based on a $9-million research project led by best-selling author Don Tapscott, Wikinomics shows how masses of people can participate in the economy like never before. They are creating TV news stories, sequencing genomes, remixing their favorite music, designing software, finding cures for disease, editing school texts, inventing new cosmetics, and even building motorcycles. You'll read about:

Critic Reviews:

"A clear and exciting preview of how peer innovation will change everything." (Booklist)

"This clear and meticulously researched primer gives business leaders big leg up on mass collaboration possibilities." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Editor please

This book contains some interesting concepts to which I was happy to be introduced and some great stories, mostly from the worlds of business and academia, that illustrate and flesh out the concepts. It is also, unfortunately, tedious and repetitive. A good editor could shorten it by half and vastly improve it by doing so.

Wikinomics

The content of the book is excellent, especially for executives not really clued into the wikiness of the tech world. But the narrator, who has a beautiful and strong speaking voice, is so forceful with every sentence, one would think the book is a series of proclamations on how wiki will save the world. As a result the book's message and content began to seem redundant after Chapter 2. Less would have been more in this case.

sadly, a disappointment

I was expecting a lot more from this book. If you're looking for something insightful and interesting to listen to, I would suggest either "Freakonomics" or "The World is Flat".

"Wikinomics" blathers on and on about an open-source revolution, and companies that do not embrace the open-source movement will ultimately lose out. I personally would like to believe this, and perhaps there is evidence to really support this general claim, but you will not find it in this book. The author does point out wikipedia and linux and a few other success stories, but these are already very well documented; the author would have you believe he's really pulling back the curtains to show you a world out there that people don't already know about.

The narrator isn't the best, but even an amazing narrator couldn't make this book interesting. The tone of the book is often preachy. This author will not keep your interest beyond the opening passage. A very dull and uninspired book.

Nothing new here

Absolutely nothing new here. Tapscott seems to wait for the latest trends to pass and then writes about them as if they are new.

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Title: Seeing What's Next

Subtitle: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change

Author: Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony, Erik A. Roth

Narrator: Joel Leffert

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-22-07

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 159 votes

Genres: Business, Commerce & Economy

Publisher's Summary:

Seeing What's Next is a framework for predicting industry winners and losers. Every day, individuals take action based on how they believe innovation will change industries. Yet these beliefs are largely based on guesswork and incomplete data, and can lead to costly errors in judgment. Internationally renowned innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen and his research partners, Scott D. Anthony and Erik A. Roth, present this groundbreaking guide for predicting outcomes in the evolution of any industry.

©2004 Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony, and Erik A. Roth; (P)2006 Recorded Books LLC

Members Reviews:

Informative, but a bit dry.

The target reader of this book, I believe, would be people who invest in stocks and need to know all the variables that may cause companies to perform well or not. I think their point of view is very reasonable; explaining in large terms what motivates companies to compete for market share. The language is still just a bit abstract at times, with long, convoluted phrases, but it's still understandable. They cover many areas of business and describe real scenarios. Some of the examples are dated but don't sound farfetched, which would suggest that their theories may be feasible. I liked the book, and will likely listen to it again to see if I can get more out of it.

Dry, dated BUT informative

Would you consider the audio edition of Seeing What's Next to be better than the print version?

A very dry reading of a very dry book. Having said that, I cannot imagine I would have been able to get through the print version without falling asleep, over and over.

Sadly, no pdf of the charts and other items mentioned in the audio book are provided...it would be helpful if there was a way to access some of the tables and charts mentioned throughout the book.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Complex ideas are presented very matter of factly, requiring rewinds at times to really get the whole message.

Any additional comments?

While the examples in this book are very dated, the concepts are very good. As a company that is trying to innovate, this book provided some very interested frameworks to evaluate the approaches we might take.

Pretentious and Outdated

I really admire Clayton Christensen work and was amazed and inspired by his book "The Innovator's Solution". However, here the team is taking same basic theory and attempt to project it on the future of several industries and try to forecast their future. Reading (listening) to those prediction a dozen or more years later makes it all sound like a joke. Being wrong in so many cases, I am not sure they created a very good service to their theory, and I am sure they showed a company should not let a team of professors navigate it to the future.

Anyway, there were many insightful stories and some reviews of the theory and the way it should be reduced to practice, so it was not a complete waste of time.

amazing read!

this book introduces a framework to sense signals of change in an industry and to identify where lies best strategic direction

Great narration, good content

Narrator was great, would definitely listen to him again...

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Title: The Wal-Mart Effect

Author: Charles Fishman

Narrator: Alan Sklar

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-14-06

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 955 votes

Genres: Business, Commerce & Economy

Publisher's Summary:

Wal-Mart is not only the world's largest company; it is also the largest company in the history of the world. Though 70 percent of Americans now live within a 15-minute drive of a Wal-Mart store, we have not even begun to understand the true power of the company and the many ways it is shaping American life. We know about the lawsuits and the labor protests, but what we don't know is how profoundly the "Wal-Mart effect" is shaping our lives.

Fast Company senior editor Fishman, whose revelatory cover story on Wal-Mart generated the strongest reader response in the history of the magazine, takes us on an unprecedented behind-the-scenes investigative expedition deep inside the many worlds of Wal-Mart. Fishman penetrated the secrecy of Wal-Mart headquarters, interviewing 25 high-level ex-executives. He journeyed into the world of a host of Wal-Mart's suppliers to uncover how the company strong-arms even the most established brands. And he journeyed to the ports and factories, the fields and forests where Wal-Mart's power is warping the very structure of the world's market for goods.

Wal-Mart is not just a retailer anymore, Fishman argues. It has become a kind of economic ecosystem, and anyone who wants to understand the forces shaping our world today must understand the company's hidden reach.

Critic Reviews:

"In the end, Fishman sees Wal-Mart as neither good nor evil, but simply a fact of modern life that can barely be comprehended, let alone controlled." (Publishers Weekly)

"He brings to light the serious repercussions that are occurring as consumers and suppliers have become locked in an addiction to massive sales of cheaper and cheaper goods." (Booklist)

Members Reviews:

Excellent, Balanced View

I'd read the article Fishman wrote in Wired a couple years back, so I was interested to learn more. The book was a nice, balanced look into what makes Wal-Mart tick, and some of the repercussions of their single minded drive to lower prices. While I was interested in the subject, I'm more of a fiction book reader, so I wasn't sure if I'd stick with a long non fiction book on business. Surprisingly, it went by fairly quickly, kept my interest the whole time.

If you're a Wal-Mart hater, you'll find ammunition in there, especially with regards to cheap salmon and gallon jars of Vlasic pickles. If you're a hard core capitalist, you'll appreaciate the fact that shopping at Wal-Mart saves many, many families a good deal of money due to their focus on lowered prices.

By chance, I listened to this soon after after re-reading "Atlas Shrugged". It made for some interesting mental comparisons.

Amazing

Since I work at Walmart I have found this book so interesting. I am only half way though it and am captured by all the ways in which Walmart started. I also know the day to day routine of Walmart so I am hoping the last half of the book will detail my daily life. As with all jobs it's a 50/50 kind of place to work, I am thankful they hired me since I am an older person but find they are all talk and no action. I hope more will listen to this book and learn from it. I have also purchased the book for my hearing impaired friends to read....

Nothing you probably don't already know

This was a very good book. Entertaining and informative... though a little repetitive at times.