Vital Energy: The 7 Keys to Invigorate Body, Mind, and SoulHardcover, 1 December 1999

The roller-coaster life of the flamboyant creator of General Motors

A well-written biography.--New York Times

A well-executed glimpse of one of the giants of the automobile industry.--Publishers Weekly

Long before Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, and Bill Gates, there was William C. Durant (1861-1947), the flamboyant businessman who made deals at warp speed to build General Motors and the automotive industry. Now in paperback, The Deal Maker brings Durant, a self-starter obsessed with making it and being seen as making it, to thrilling life. Thriving on the art of the deal, Durant was buying companies at the rate of one every thirty days at the height of his career. By 1910, he had brought together twenty-five automobile firms into what would become the General Motors empire. Then, gambling on a run on GM stock, Durant was forced into a buyout, which unseated him from GM, leaving him without the financial wherewithal to ever succeed again. Featuring some of the most important figures in the history of the automotive industry and American business, including Henry Ford, David Buick, Albert Champion, Louis Chevrolet, Alfred P. Sloan, and Pierre Du Pont, The Deal Maker is a fast-paced, rousing tale of Durant's dizzying success and abject failure.