Rude Awakening: The Rise, Fall, and Struggle for Recovery of General Motors

Investment analyst, financial columnist and PBS-TV panelist Keller here retells how General Motors, a long-dominant, complacent corporate giant, was jolted by the 1970s oil embargos and by foreign competition. These developments led to massive company reorganization in the '80s under ebullient GM chairman Roger Smith, and to the joint GM-Toyota production of the Chevy Nova using Japanese concepts of worker participation. In a straightforward but engaging style, Keller recalls the corporate thrashings, as success, lost in a maze of missed opportunities, kept eluding GM. Astonishing accounts of human failures emerge as the author spins this sorry industrial saga, which ends on a barely hopeful note. (Sept.)