Biography & Autobiography : Business

In Enterprising Minnesotans we read stories of the men and women throughout Minnesota’s history who have created exceptional businesses from 1849 to the present, including Cargill, the Mayo Clinic, Andersen Windows, Ecolab, Schwan’s, and Leeann Chin, Inc. Through fascinating stories, Enterprising Minnesotans honors the creativity, tenacity, and boldness that enabled these men and women to transform their dreams into success. more...

Price: $57.00

The startling story of an early American dreamer whose wily schemes made him a founding father of our speculation nation. Rediscover a lost chapter in early American history: the story of financial-pioneer-turned-confidence-man Andrew Dexter, Jr., and the skyscraper for which he amassed—and then lost—a paper fortune. In the 1790s, printed money and banks themselves were still regarded with tremendous suspicion, as traditional strictures about moneylending slowly made way for modern freewheeling capitalism. A pioneer in the new age of paper, Dexter challenged the notions of his Puritan ancestors by embarking on a wild career in real estate speculation, all financed by the string of banks he commandeered and the millions of dollars they freely printed. Upon this paper pyramid he built the tallest building in the United States—the Exchange Coffee House, a seven-story colossus in downtown Boston. But in early 1809, just as the exchange was ready for unveiling, the scheme collapsed. In Boston, the exchange became an opulent but largely vacant building, a symbol of monumental ambition and failure. Kamensky deftly steers the reader through this history, providing a riveting historical narrative of a second American founding: the birth of speculative capitalism. The book will appeal to fans of Peter Bernstein’s Against the Gods, John Gordon’s Empire of Wealth, and Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, as well as Ross King’s Brunelleschi’s Dome. more...

Price: $17.00

A fascinating look at insurance industry icon Hank Greenberg and the company he led For nearly 40 years, Maurice ''Hank'' Greenberg was one of the most powerful CEOs in America. He built American International Group (AIG) from a second-rate insurer with a great Chinese franchise into one of the world’s most profitable companies. more...

Price: $24.95

A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism. Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt is an American icon. more...

Price: $37.50

Every era has its merger; every era has its story. For the New Media age it was an even bigger disaster: the AOL–Time Warner deal. At the time AOL and Time Warner were considered a matchless combination of old media content and new media distribution. But very soon after the deal was announced things started to go bad – and then from bad to worse. Less than four years after the deal was announced, every significant figure in the deal –save the politically astute Richard Parsons – has left the company, along with scores of others. Nearly a $100 billion was written off and a stock that once traded at $100 now trades near $10. What happened? Where did it all go wrong? In this deeply sourced and deftly written book, Nina Munk gives us a window into the minds of two of the oddest men to ever run billion–dollar empires. Steve Case, the boy wonder who built AOL one free floppy disk at a time, was searching for a way out of the New Economy. Meanwhile Jerry Levin, who'd made his reputation as a visionary when he put HBO on satellite distribution, was searching for a monumental deal. These two men, more interested in their place in history than their personal fortunes, each thought they were out–smarting the other. more...

Price: $11.99