Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Great Family Businesses

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Overview


Through perseverance, solid ingenuity, and unwavering determination, family-run companies-dynasties-have dominated wealth and business throughout the last two centuries. One third of Fortune 500 firms are family owned and, in most cases, the ideal of the family business is one synonymous with continuity, watchful leadership, and dedication to success. But what happens when bad behavior, extravagance, and laziness-all very real enemies of industry-are allowed to proliferate?In Dynasties, bestselling author and ...
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Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Great Family Businesses

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Overview


Through perseverance, solid ingenuity, and unwavering determination, family-run companies-dynasties-have dominated wealth and business throughout the last two centuries. One third of Fortune 500 firms are family owned and, in most cases, the ideal of the family business is one synonymous with continuity, watchful leadership, and dedication to success. But what happens when bad behavior, extravagance, and laziness-all very real enemies of industry-are allowed to proliferate?In Dynasties, bestselling author and historian David S. Landes scrutinizes the powerful family businesses that rule both the financial and industrial sectors across Europe, Japan, and America to determine what factors can cause a dynasty to flourish or fail. Focusing on three areas-banking, automobiles, and raw materials-his cast of characters speaks to the power of the family enterprise: Ford, Rothschild, Morgan, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Toyoda are but a few whose histories contain all the drama and passion expected when exorbitant money, power, and kinship intersect. Drawing on his immense knowledge of economic history, Landes offers a new reading of the dynastic business plan of the last two centuries-with surprising recommendations for the coming one.

Bestselling author and historian Landes scrutinizes the powerful family businesses that rule both the financial and industrial sectors across Europe, Japan, and America to determine what factors can cause a dynasty to flourish or fail. Unabridged. 1 MP3 CD.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Beginning as a work of economics, moving through soap opera and finishing as history, this book tells the stories of 11 great family businesses in Europe, Japan and America with at least three generations of family control. Observing that the vast majority of businesses are family owned and run, historian Landes (The Wealth and Poverty of Nations) argues that dynastic businesses offer a proven route to developing emerging markets, while companies managed by unrelated professionals and funded by public investors offer mostly bad jobs and slim profit shares to local employees. Even among the largest corporations, many retain significant financial and managerial involvement by the founder's relatives, and those that do perform better than the others. Landes's stories emphasize emotional life within these dynasties; he includes business details and general economic history only as context for family adventures and feuds. His emphasis is on how family considerations such as authority, love, trust, envy, marriage, adoption and succession determine the growth and direction of the business. While this may seem irrational compared to entrusting strategic decisions to specialized professionals selected according to talent rather than bloodline, Landes argues that family does a better job. (Sept. 25) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Economic historian Landes (history & economics, emeritus, Harvard; The Wealth and Poverty of Nations) offers a lively although very loosely organized analysis of 11 major global family businesses and the personalities involved in their successes and challenges. He defines "dynasties" as at least "three successive generations of family control," and he covers multiple generations of family businesses in banking (e.g., the Rothschilds), automobile production (e.g., the Fords and the Toyodas), and the "mining and working of raw materials" (e.g., the Rockefellers). Though he admits that managerial corporate structures run by unrelated professionals dominate the international business world, he points out that most businesses, large and small, are family-owned and run, that 90 percent of American businesses were family run as of ten years ago, accounting for more than half of U.S. goods and services, and that they now constitute one-third of those in the Fortune 500. He concludes that family businesses are especially important for underdeveloped countries because they offer reputation, stability, profit-share, and long-term reliability.This overview, complete with family sagas, is interesting, but readers who want more substance and structure could read particular biographies, e.g., Ron Chernow's titles on J.P. Morgan, the Warburgs, and John D. Rockefeller. Jack Forman, San Diego Mesa Coll. Lib. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
From the Publisher
“Sklar's narration is understated, keeping the stories well paced but avoiding a salacious tone. He often makes it seem as if the listener is being told an anecdote by a friend.” —-AudioFile
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780143112471
  • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
  • Publication date: 9/25/2007
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 400
  • Sales rank: 937,561
  • Product dimensions: 5.58 (w) x 8.38 (h) x 0.91 (d)

Meet the Author


David S. Landes is professor emeritus of history and economics at Harvard and author of the bestseller The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. His other books include Bankers and Pashas, The Unbound Prometheus, and Revolution in Time. Winner of several AudioFile Earphones Awards and a multiple finalist for the APA's prestigious Audie Award, Alan Sklar has narrated nearly two hundred audiobooks, including Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden, The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings by Thomas Maier, and The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. Named a Best Voice of 2009 by AudioFile magazine, his work has earned him a Booklist Editors' Choice Award (twice), a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, and Audiobook of the Year by ForeWord magazine. The Dartmouth graduate's theatre credits include Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Seagull, and many modern roles. Alan has also narrated thousands of corporate videos for clients such as NASA,Sikorsky Aircraft, IBM, Dannon, Pfizer, AT&T, and SONY. For several years, he has been the spokesman for TracFone Wireless Co. and can often be seen and heard on TracFone radio and TV spots and infomercials."I am so pleased, as is my husband, to have found a narrator that holds our attention so well that we have come to compare every other narrator to him (you). So far we have found none with such a talent as yours. We very much plan to listen to as many of your works as we can find." -Sandi King, a letter to Mr. Sklar
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