The Reckoning |  | Author: David Halberstam
Publisher: William Morrow & Co
Category: Book
List Price: $3.98
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Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 553288
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 752
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.7
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.5 x 2.3
ISBN: 0688048382
Dewey Decimal Number: 330
EAN: 9780688048389
ASIN: 0688048382
Publication Date: September 1986
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 ten stars July 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is a masterpiece of narrative journalism. Based on five years of research and interviews, it tells the story of how the Japanese came to dominate the American car industry by telling the stories of key individuals, in the U.S. and Japan, who played important roles in that story. Halberstam is such a skilled writer that every one of these people comes alive on the page; you will meet the Fords and their Japanese counterparts at Nissan, and executives, car designers, union leaders, and workers in both countries. Along the way, as you get to know these people, you will learn the story not only of the automobile industry but also of American business in general, the story of how American companies abandonned the making of quality products under pressure from finance people (trained at the nation's leading business schools) who care only about stock position and short-term profits. There can be no better primer for anyone who wants to understand the economic history of America in the second-half of the twentieth century. Read it and weep--and then take a look at Eamon Fingleton's "In Praise of Hard Industry" (also published under the title "Unsustainable").
Cars, egos, leadership, family, unions, and rises and falls ... October 3, 2007
I'm really not into cars. However, I happened onto The Reckoning because of having read and liked earlier Halberstam books but ... and found it to be one of the best I have ever read, an absolutely great book. On more than one occasion, I have talked way too much about the remarkable stories it includes, way too long. The Ford:Nissan comparative history is a good mechanism, but the stories are the really great part - the totally hilarious (the salesman in the Port of LA changing the nameplates, trying to explain about the brakes and the engine blankets to the Japanese engineers); the absolutely tragic (Ford and his son, Edsel); the truly remarkable (the business dream team after WWII, the family actions after Edsel's death), the bizarre (pulling the chassis through a barn with a rope and measuring the elapsed time, any color as long as it's black) etc., etc. Lots of car and manufacturing and labor relations stuff, but a really readable book for anyone. And I am truly not into cars ...
A wonderful book December 14, 2006
The Reckoning is a wonderful book that shows how the United States lost its dominance in the automobile industry. In true Halberstam fashion MacNamara is one of the main villains but through stunning research Halberstam paints a very clear picture of what happened. Japans attention to detail and innovation overshadow America's downfall. The big three are unable to respond and those who are running the Japanese business in the United States who were far more inventive. This book is still relevant even in today's world.
 Relevant even today September 23, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If "The Reckoning" is not a classic then certainly it is an authoritative account of Nissan's assault on the U.S. market (and Ford's subsequent demise). The account of the Big Three's arrogance has been told many times since Halberstam published this book, but Halberstam deserves a lot of credit for so much of his book being so relevant to what American automakers are facing today. Insert big SUVs and big trucks any time Halberstam talks about Big Cars = Big Profits and you've got a pretty good idea of what's going on today with Ford and GM and their reluctance to come out with small, fuel-efficient vehicles in favor of high-margin SUVs. It is necessary to point out, though, that even though American auto executives were truly arrogant and complacent with their market share, Japanese manufacturing (lean production) was a paradigm shift. In order to compete on quality with the Japanese American auto would have had to spend billions of dollars on new plants and capital equipment (in essence, almost "betting the farm" that Demings' TQM was the wave of the future). The Japanese had the distinct advantage of having to start from scratch.
Execellent Book. December 27, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
A fascinating book. FIVE STARS but some of the writing is flawed and difficult to read though 95% of it is engrossing. It's a long book! Very thought provoking.
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