Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America by Upton Sinclair, Steve Meyer ISBN: 0-88286-054-2 Publisher: Charles H Kerr Pub Co Pub. Date: March, 1984 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (3 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Other Story about Ford...
Comment: Sinclair writes an extremely interesting historical novel about the start of the Ford Automobile Company. The story is told from the perspective of Abner Shutt, one of Ford's first employees. Abner lives in the times where Henry Ford began his auto design humbly in the early 1900's till the mid 30's when Ford was known as the richest man in the world.
The story's focus, however, is on the treatment of the workers. When Ford started his factory, he cared a great deal about his employees, but as time went on he became obsessed with speeding up the manufacturing process and increasing his profits. By streamlining the process and making people work harder, his profits grew while his workers received the same pay. When the workers tried to form unions Ford's "hidden spies" crushed any attempt of congregation, even resorting to violence.
This book was like reading a detailed piece of history. Ford's anti-Semitic feelings are revealed through his little-known Dearborn Chronicle Magazine and how the Klan was active in the Detroit area. Also, Ford company initiatives are accounted for as well (such as moral families received a substantial bonus - if they allowed themselves to be investigated.) The historical scope of the novel is fascinating and I found it compelling, rich, and hard to put down. It is similar to the Sinclair's Jungle (an account on the conditions of the meat packing plants). The book was instrumental in the formation of the United Auto Worker's Union.
Rating: 5
Summary: Sinclair's Horribly Underrated Gem
Comment: Sinclair, known mainly for The Jungle, has created a masterpiece of proletarit literature. As in The Jungle Sinclair uses the guise of a storyteller to warn the working population that where there is a false idol created by gold there is a hell on earth as a result. Sinclair's overriding message is simple: where there is the extremely rich, there is the extremely poor. Unlike Karl Marx or others like Marx, Sinclair doesn't force the message down the readers throats, he slips a little of the message into our drink and before we know it we are inebriated with his viewpoint. The book is about 120 pages but in those short few pages you meet and come to care about characters like Abner Shutt, Tom Shutt, and even the antagonist Henry Ford, the Flivver King himself. Sinclairs greatest gift as a storyteller is his ability to make us empathize, not just sympathize, with the characters. By the end of the story we don't just know what it might have been like to be those people, we know exactly what it was like because for a few moments Sinclair made us become those people. Not only does this book give us tangible characters, it also gives us a tangible atmosphere of early 20th Century America. This book was instrumental in the founding of the union movement that swept America for a very good reason. Read it and find out why it is as important now as it was then. Read it and find a cure for apathy.
Rating: 4
Summary: Upton Sinclair's The Flivver King
Comment: Upton Sinclair has given the reader a general overview of what life was like in Michigan when Henry Ford revolutionized the world with his invention of the automobile. Sinclair does this through following Abner Shutt from child to old age and his involvement with Henry Ford. Shutt is totally sold on the ideals and ethics of Henry Ford, but does this last? The Shutt family is consumed in the Ford machine, and every daily action revolves around Ford, the man and the machine. This book is very well written, and lets the reader view history as though he or she were living at the time with the Shutt family.
 |
Title: Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century (American Century) by John F., Kasson ISBN: 0809001330 Publisher: Hill & Wang Pub. Date: 01 September, 1978 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (Between Men--Between Women) by Lillian Faderman ISBN: 0140171223 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1992 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
 |
Title: Assata: An Autobiography (Lawrence Hill & Co.) by Assata Shakur ISBN: 1556520743 Publisher: Lawrence Hill Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1987 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: Major Problems in American History, 1920-1945: Documents and Essays (Major Problems in American History Series) by Colin Gordon ISBN: 0395870747 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 01 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $41.96 |
 |
Title: American Crucible : Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century by Gary Gerstle ISBN: 0691102775 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 05 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
