Robert Sobel

Brings alive the story of Trammell Crow--the visionary real estate developer whose brilliant career served to shape the future of the field. Follows Crow from his origins as a small-time real estate dealer to his transformation into a corporate symbol. Discusses the bold methods that Crow used to build the most influential real estate company in America. Includes an examination of how Crow's risky strategy of making all principals partners in his firm and offering equity interest to deal managers paid off with spectacular profits. A lively account of Crow's mission to break all the rules and become the greatest builder of our age.

In the first full-scale biography of Coolidge in a generation, Robert Sobel shatters the caricature of our thirtieth president as a silent, do-nothing leader.Sobel instead exposes the real Coolidge, whose legacy as the most Jeffersonian of all twentieth-century presidents still reverberates today. Sobel delves into the record to show how Coolidge cut taxes four times, had a budget surplus every year in office, and cut the national debt by a third in a period of unprecedented economic growth.Though his list of accomplishments is impressive, Calvin Coolidge was perhaps best known and most respected by his contemporaries for his character. Americans embraced Coolidge for his upstanding character, which came as a breath of fresh air after the scandal-ridden administration of Warren G. Harding. the sleaze that characterizes much of American political life today was absent in his administration.In many respects Coolidge was of a bygone era. He was the last president who wrote his own speeches, who spent hours each day greeting White House visitors, who had only one secretary, and who didn't even keep a telephone on his desk. Yet he remains as relevant today as he was three-quarters of a century ago. Little wonder, then, that Ronald Reagan so admired Coolidge, whose programs in the 1920s presaged the recent movement towards smaller government and reduced taxes. (It was Reagan who ordered Coolidge's portrait to be placed in the White House Cabinet Room, next to Lincoln's and Jefferson's.)Through research and analysis, Sobel reveals Coolidge's clear record of political successes and delivers the message that Coolidge had for our time--a message that speaks directly to our most important political debates.Coolidge remains an enigma to Americans because he was so unlike any other politician, past or present. Coolidge rose to the highest office in the land without the politician's familiar trappings--the glad-handling, the glib tongue, the empty promises, the negative campaigning. He lacked charisma, presence, charm, or any of the qualities that would make a politician attractive to today's media. Coolidge's legacy is his deeds, not his words--which is exactly how he would have chosen to be remembered by history.Coolidge: An American Enigma dispels the myths that have gathered around this underappreciated president and gives him the serious consideration he merits. With this timely and important biography, Sobel has surely challenged historians to reassess Calvin Coolidge.

For Want of a Nail is an alternate history classic. The outcome of one battle in the American Revolution diverges from reality, and sparks an unstoppable chain of events which affects the history of the whole North American continent. In reality, the British general John Burgoyne, heavily outnumbered by American troops, surrendered his army to General Horatio Gates at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, a major turning-point of the Revolution. Robert Sobel takes a step sideways and presents the alternative version: reinforcements arrive at Saratoga, Gates' men flee, and Burgoyne is victorious. Rather than openly allying itself with the American rebels, France withdraws its support, as does Spain, and the colonies surrender. Those former rebels who refuse to live in the Confederation of North America established by the British leave their homes and settle in what becomes the United States of Mexico. From then on the two continental nations find themselves constant rivals, locked in military, political and economic conflict. Sobel provides a detailed, intricately documented insight into two warring powers that develop in such dramatically different ways from their shared origins.

Financial markets have an impressive history of gains and progress for prudent and judicious investors. But these advances are often interrupted by powerful and sudden setbacks or forward lurches. What is it about investment psychology, and the structure of financial markets, that causes this? How should we react to short term gyrations that can excite or frighten? And what is the role of government regulation in stabilizing financial markets?Secrets of the Great Investors Series is a collection of audio presentations that explain, in understandable language, the strategies and principles that have produced great wealth. History's greatest investors used powerful investing philosophies to produce superior results, and we can learn from their successes and mistakes.

In America's financial nerve center, fortunes are made, and sometimes lost. J.P. Morgan, Jay Gould, Hetty Green, Jim Brady, Jesse Livermore, Bernard Baruch, Joseph Kennedy, and many others have made "the street" what it is today. Learn about the techniques, principles, and innovations that have shaped the market, and sharpen your ability to interpret today's market in a broad historical context. The Secrets of the Great Investors series is a collection of presentations that explain, in understandable language, the strategies, tactics, and principles that have produced great wealth, and how you can improve your financial future. History's greatest investors used powerful investing philosophies to produce superior results, and you can learn from their successes and mistakes.

Several books have been written on the crash itself but none before has dealt with events leading up to it.The era of the 1920s was one of economic growth, and not merely tinsel and ballyhoo. For most of the period, stock market prices were not unreasonably high and investment capitalism matured and took on its present-day power. It was Wall Street's silver age.It was also and age of time purchases and of buying stocks on margin; an age when both practices were abused, but when Wall Street was no worse than Main Street. It was a period when government would not take major steps to correct the abuses and excesses. The few decisions made by the Federal Reserve were neither timely nor wise. A head of steam was building up for which there was no safety valve.When the great crash came it was not directly followed by an economic collapse. During the next year, government and business did nothing of importance to prevent the depression, whose severity could not be attributed to Wall Street.

The financial panics analyzed in this book illustrate the complexity of such events and that the causes are political, military, economic, and even psychological.

This fascinating book chronicles the rise of a cadre of imaginative, bold, and often ruthless entrepreneurs who took advantage of a buoyant stock market to create giant enterprises.

Discusses the history of money and investing from ancient times to the present day.

Book by Sobel, Robert

This fascinating book shows how the New York securities market, with its promise of great wealth and its equally devastating disappointments, is a vital link in the history of American economic growth.

A respected business historian explores the failures of such companies as Schwinn, Korvette's, RCA, and Pabst, discussing the pivotal mistakes, management missteps, and product failures that led industry leading into precipitous and sometimes fatal declines. 10,000 first printing.

Behind the scenes rivalry and search for the next great idea which will leave the competition in the dust.

A popular text and valuable resource since the first edition was published in 1972, Robert Sobel's The Age of Giant Corporations is now available in a third edition, bringing the history up to the present. This book describes the industries and corporations that have played major roles in the nation's economic growth since the outbreak of World War I. It concentrates on management, technology, marketing and finance, and is concerned with the interrelations and intertwining of political and industrial power. The current edition includes a new chapter covering the impact of junk bonds and corporate governance in the 1980s and early 1990s, an age of restructuring and re-creation in giant corporations.Taking a chronological approach, the volume opens with a chapter on American business during World War I. The author then covers the 1920s in two chapters, one on the glamour industries of the era and one discussing power, consolidation, and mass distribution. Turning to the Depression era in Chapters 4, 5, and 6, he then considers the failure of finance capitalism, business during the New Deal, and growth elements during the Depression. Chapter 7 considers government-business relations in World War II, and Chapter 8 discussed monopsony and conglomerates in postwar America. Turning to the 1960s and 1970s, the next two chapters are devoted to big business and then to decline, revival, and renewal. The final chapter covers the era of the junk bond and its aftermath. The Age of Giant Corporations will continue to be a valuable book for students and scholars of U.S. economic history.

The story of the perpetrators of some of the most dizzing and daring financial machinations.

The first major book by a distinguished academic on America's unmatched growth and unparalleled prosperity from the end of World War II to the presentDuring WWII, Americans learned to do without, but the returning GIs soon initiated a dramatic expansion in our economy. The 1950s saw unmatched demands for housing, automobiles, and consumer goods as well as the start of the "baby boom." During this time, Americans created Levittowns, television, interstates, and Howard Johnsons. Housewives prepared frozen foods or took the family to new fast-food chains. Highways were vastly expanded and air travel took off with the coming of cross-continental jets. American mutual funds sent the stock markets into the stratosphere, and Silicon Valley, alone, has created more wealth in the last 20 years than any other industry on Earth.The Great Boom is the first major book on how America's WWII veterans literally rebuilt and totally revitalized America into the Enterprise Society as it exists today. Numerous success stories are woven throughout this engrossing narrative.

Analyzes the practices of the outdoor securities market of lower Manhattan from the late 18th century to 1921 and shows the impact of government investigation and legislation on Wall Street.

Profiles the world's largest conglomerate, which deals in a vast range of enterprises from selling seeds and fertilizer to running hotels and developing the electronics of the future, from its founding in 1920 to the present

Traces the beginning of IBM from its beginnings as the National Cash Register under Thomas Watson, Sr., showing how it forged ahead of all others and defined the electronic world.

Traces the development of the prestigious banking firm, offers profiles of its most influential leaders, and discusses the reasons for its longterm success

Using RCA to exemplify the operations--rights and wrongs--of twentieth-century American industry, this book examines the history of the giant corporation under the leadership of David Sarnoff and after

The Penn Central debacle has much to teach investors, businessmen, and financiers about giant corporations caught in economic recessions or industries suffering a slow decline.

This revealing book, which describes the struggles for leadership and AMEX's return from near-disaster to a position of respect, is a must for anyone who has ever done any stock trading.

A celebration and in-depth study of America's entrepreneurs, told in this lavishly illustrated volume that expands and enriches the companion television series, to air in the fall of this year, hosted by Robert Mitchum. Robert Sobel is the author of IBM, Colossus in Transition.

This 1986 edition is in beautiful condition. It appears to be unread. The pages are bright white. It is missing its dust jacket though.

In today's age of information the media expert - not the politician, bureaucrat or military officer - has taken command. The Manipulators describes how the media have come to power. Robert Sobel chronicles the growth of America's five information and entertainment newspapers, radio, movies, television and college (itself a form of showbiz). He follows the careers of William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitizer, Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer, David Sarnoff, William S. Paley, Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite and other movers and shakers of the industries. He charts the rise of the peep show, wireless, nickelodeon, talkies, film and videotape. And he explains how media experts are suck skillful creators of illusions.

The Cigarette in American Life

Chronicles the stories of Milton Friedman, John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Burns, Paul Samuelson and other well-known economists, discussing the personal background and views of each and tracing their rise to celebrity status