Empire Builders: How Michigan Entrepreneurs Helped Make America Great

Rating:
Summary: A classic in its own time
Review: Burton Folsom's Empire Builders is a stunning tour de force--a compelling tale of great entrepreneurs and how their contributions carved a great state out of a mosquito-infested, swamp-filled territory.

The stories of how Will Kellogg got going in the corn flakes business, how Herbert Dow whipped the German bromine cartel, how John Jacob Astor built a flourishing fur trade in direct competition with the federal government, and how Henry Ford and Billy Durant made Michigan a car-producing behemoth are among the fascinating accounts Folsom weaves into this book. Underlying it all is a time-honored principle that so many of today's historians (being left-leaning tenured academics living in their own world while feeding off the toil of the very risk-taking businesspeople they love to criticize)seem to ignore: get government involved in enterprise and the result is poverty and disaster; leave people alone in a free society and the result is opportunity and prosperity for ! all.

Thank you, Dr. Folsom, for this most enlightening and lively history. I hope your employer lets you write many more such works.

Rating:
Summary: Juicy Story, Not Boring at All
Review: I grew up in Michigan, but had little idea of these ripping good tales. If you liked this book, try also the delightful "Eighty Acres."