Against All Odds: The Story of the Toyota Motor Corporation and the Family That Created It
One would certainly expect that a book co-written by the head of Toyota's U.S. sales division would present a sanitized version of the history of the Toyota Motor Corporation. That suspicion aside, the work is an interesting and complex history of the founding and phenomenal growth of the Toyota Company. The reader will learn how the Japanese car industry struggled against the pressure of foreign imports, the devastating effects of World War II, and the lack of manufacturing materials and skills. The development of the company's manufacturing process and other innovations it had to initiate to survive are discussed at length. The writing is well done and easy enough for general readers. Industry experts will probably not find anything new here, but for the merely curious the book provides solid insight into the Japanese automobile industry.- Kenneth M. Locke, Radford, Va.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.