A Ghost's Memoir
Subtitle: The Making of Alfred P. Sloan's My Years with General Motors
Contributors: Dan Seligman (Foreword)
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: April 15, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 220
ISBN-13: 9780262134101
Subjects: Biography: general; Business & Management; History of specific subjects; Road vehicle manufacturing industry; Automobile Industries (Economic Aspects); History Of Specific Companies; Biography & Autobiography; Business / Economics / Finance; Biography/Autobiography; Business; Corporate & Business History - General; Business & Economics / Corporate History; General; Industries - General; (Alfred Pritchard),; 1875-1966; 1875-1966; Automobile industry and trade; Case studies; General Motors Corporation; Industrial management; Management; My years with General Motors; Sloan, Alfred P; Sloan, Alfred P; United States
First sentence: On March 4, 1959, Mr. Sloan called me into his office.
Description: "Published in 1964, My Years with General Motors was an immediate best-seller and today is considered one of the few classic books on management. The book is the ghostwritten memoir of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. (1875-1966), whose business and management strategies enabled General Motors to overtake Ford as the dominant American automobile manufacturer in the 1920s and 1930s.".

"What has been largely unknown until now is that My Years with General Motors was almost not published. Although it was written with the permission of General Motors - and slated for publication in October 1959 - at the last minute General Motors tried to suppress the book out of fears that some of the material in it could become evidence in an antitrust action against the company.

This book, by John McDonald, Sloan's ghostwriter, tells the behind-the-scenes story of the book's writing, its attempted suppression, and the lawsuit that eventually led to its publication. McDonald's narrative is partly the David-and-Goliath story of a lone journalist taking on the world's then-largest corporation and partly a study of strategy in its own right. McDonald's struggle to publish the book led him to navigate a complicated course among the competing interests of General Motors, Fortune magazine (his employer), and Time, Inc. (Fortune's owner).

In many ways this book about the book parallels the Sloan book as a tale of successful, brilliantly planned strategy."--BOOK JACKET.