Halberstam’s "The Reckoning" Still a Must-Read
April 24, 2007

Writer and reporter David Halberstam, who died in a car crash Monday at the age of 73, is best known for his Vietnam War reporting, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, and other best-selling books.

But in Detroit and the auto industry, he’s recognized for his groundbreaking work, The Reckoning, a study of the American and Japanese automobile industries, using Ford and Nissan as its study subjects.

Upon news of his death, I recalled running into the amiable Halberstam in the elevator of Ford’s Glass House headquarters as he was researching the book. I also recalled Halberstam being pooh-poohed in some Detroit quarters because, when his book was released in 1986, the fortunes of Ford and Nissan had reversed from their situation in Halberstam’s book. Ford was on a roll, having just introduced the trend-setting Taurus; Nissan was in a slump.

But that reversal of fortunes proved temporary. Today, Ford is in dire straits; Nissan, while stumbling a bit, has experienced a phenomenal turnaround.

As I researched this blog entry, I came across a review of The Reckoning posted on an Internet site called Associated Content, which bills itself as the “People’s Media Company," eerily only last week. The headline of the review said Halberstam’s The Reckoning should be required reading for today’s business school students.

I agree. And it should be a must-read for anyone employed in or interested in the auto industry.

When it was released, Halberstam said the The Reckoning was his most ambitious of the trilogy on American power; the earlier two were on politics and the media.

Halberstam described why he wrote the book. “One day I was on a book tour and I kept noticing that Chrysler was almost gone, Ford was in trouble, all those great American companies were (gone). ... The Japanese were taking cars, which was an American signature, and doing better at them. I didn't see it as a business story. I saw it as a social cultural story."

In economist John Kenneth Galbraith's New York Times 1986 review of the book, he said the result of Detroit’s downfall is that "life for most Americans (is) bound to become leaner. But in the middle of 1986, there seems to be little awareness of this, let alone concern about it."

Indeed, that was Halberstam's gloomy conclusion of The Reckoning. He wrote: "No country, including America, was likely ever to be as rich as America had been from 1945 to 1975, and other nations were following the Japanese into middle-class existence, which meant that life for most Americans was bound to become leaner. But in the middle of 1986, there seemed little awareness of this, let alone concern about it. Few were discussing how best to adjust the nation to an age of somewhat diminished expectations, or how to marshal its abundant resources for survival in a harsh, unforgiving new world, or how to spread the inevitable sacrifices equitably."

Amen. And the review on Associated Content of April 17 said: “Although The Reckoning is a 20-year-old book, its message has never been truer than it is now as America's once leading automobile industry is heading for deep decline. In my opinion, Halberstam's book should be retitled The Warning. By the time this book was published in 1986, the United States had already gone through two devastating energy crises orchestrated by OPEC. While Ford Motor had experienced some success with its energy-conscious Ford Taurus, the production emphasis was still on gas-guzzling trucks and luxury vehicles. While praising Nissan and other Japanese car companies' business model of affordability, fuel economy and quality control, [Halberstam] doesn't completely let them off the hook in his description of Nissan's union strife in the Fifties.

“In the meantime, in 2007, the price of gasoline is over $3 a gallon, the Iranians are once again threatening the Straits of Hormuz, Ford has laid off thousands of workers, Toyota is now the world's second largest carmaker,” the column written April 17 concluded.

Make that gasoline that could hit $4 gallon and, as of this morning, Toyota is the world’s No. 1 automaker.

Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:57 AM under Commentary , Companies , Ford , News , Personalities | Comments (2) | digg this | Seed Newsvine