A Triumph Of Genius

This major business biography of Polaroid and its founder and inventor Edwin Land, covers how the company grew from the initial Polavision prototypes during World War II, to the 1980s landmark patent infringement trial against Kodak that nearly brought the company to its knees.

The unauthorized story of the enigmatic man who created a world-class organization in his own image and then lost control of it. 24 pages of photographs.

George W. Bush calls Karl Rove "boy genius" and "the man with the plan." Insiders call him the man behind the Republican ascendancy. Who is this guy? And what is the plan?

“A riveting account that reaches beyond the market landscape to say something universal about risk and triumph, about hubris and failure.”—The New York Times NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BUSINESSWEEK In this business classic—now with a new Afterword in which the author draws parallels to the recent financial crisis—Roger Lowenstein captures the gripping roller-coaster ride of Long-Term Capital Management. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein explains not just how the fund made and lost its money but also how the personalities of Long-Term’s partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the culture of Wall Street itself contributed to both their rise and their fall. When it was founded in 1993, Long-Term was hailed as the most impressive hedge fund in history. But after four years in which the firm dazzled Wall Street as a $100 billion moneymaking juggernaut, it suddenly suffered catastrophic losses that jeopardized not only the biggest banks on Wall Street but the stability of the financial system itself. The dramatic story of Long-Term’s fall is now a chilling harbinger of the crisis that would strike all of Wall Street, from Lehman Brothers to AIG, a decade later. In his new Afterword, Lowenstein shows that LTCM’s implosion should be seen not as a one-off drama but as a template for market meltdowns in an age of instability—and as a wake-up call that Wall Street and government alike tragically ignored. Praise for When Genius Failed “[Roger] Lowenstein has written a squalid and fascinating tale of world-class greed and, above all, hubris.”—BusinessWeek “Compelling . . . The fund was long cloaked in secrecy, making the story of its rise . . . and its ultimate destruction that much more fascinating.”—The Washington Post “Story-telling journalism at its best.”—The Economist

This “marvelously absorbing” book is “a walk on the wild side of words and ventures into the zone where language and mathematics intersect” (San Jose Mercury News). A former Wall Street Journal reporter and NPR regular, Stefan Fatsis recounts his remarkable rise through the ranks of elite Scrabble players while exploring the game’s strange, potent hold over them—and him. At least thirty million American homes have a Scrabble set—but the game’s most talented competitors inhabit a sphere far removed from the masses of “living room players.” Theirs is a surprisingly diverse subculture whose stars include a vitamin-popping standup comic; a former bank teller whose intestinal troubles earned him the nickname “G.I. Joel”; a burly, unemployed African American from Baltimore’s inner city; the three-time national champion who plays according to Zen principles; and the author himself, who over the course of the book is transformed from a curious reporter to a confirmed Scrabble nut. Fatsis begins by haunting the gritty corner of a Greenwich Village park where pickup Scrabble games can be found whenever weather permits. His curiosity soon morphs into compulsion, as he sets about memorizing thousands of obscure words and fills his evenings with solo Scrabble played on his living room floor. Before long he finds himself at tournaments, socializing—and competing—with Scrabble’s elite. But this book is about more than hardcore Scrabblers, for the game yields insights into realms as disparate as linguistics, psychology, and mathematics. Word Freak extends its reach even farther, pondering the light Scrabble throws on such notions as brilliance, memory, competition, failure, and hope. It is a geography of obsession that celebrates the uncanny powers locked in all of us, “a can’t-put-it-down narrative that dances between memoir and reportage” (Los Angeles Times). “Funny, thoughtful, character-rich, unchallengeably winning writing.” —The Atlantic Monthly This edition includes a new afterword by the author.

Presenting the story of Gustave Eiffel, this book examines the conception, and controversial construction of the tower that bears his name, one of the most famous tall buildings in the world. Just at the point of his greatest success, he signed contracts for the project which was to bring scandal on his name - the Panama Canal.

Standing at the podium, Victor Villaseñor looked at the group of educators amassed before him, and his mind flooded with childhood memories of humiliation and abuse at the hands of his teachers. He became enraged. With a pounding heart, he began to speak of these incidents. When he was through, to his great disbelief he received a standing ovation. Many in the audience could not contain their own tears. So begins the passionate, touching memoir of Victor Villaseñor. Highly gifted and imaginative as a child, Villaseñor coped with an untreated learning disability (he was finally diagnosed, at the age of forty-four, with extreme dyslexia) and the frustration of growing up Latino in an English-only American school in the 1940s. Despite teachers who beat him because he could not speak English, Villaseñor clung to his dream of one day becoming a writer. He is now considered one of the premier writers of our time.

Roger Ailes, former Republican political consultant, and current president of Fox News Channel, is a dominant media figure of our age. His made-for-TV imagery and mastery of “style over substance” has overtaken earlier methods of reporting the news, and radically refashioned our political and communications landscapes. Yet, no book has ever been published on this Oz-like figure: Dark Genius is the definitive study of Ailes and his controversial career. The 1960 television encounter between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy was the moment when slick television imagery began to take over politics. Ailes, a young TV producer, absorbed the lessons of the new video age, and put them into practice. While a director on “The Mike Douglas Show”, he met Richard Nixon, who soon hired Ailes to help him conquer the fledgling medium. Riding the wave of that triumph, Ailes went on to aid other key Republican figures like Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Rudy Giuliani. In the 1990s, Ailes was hired to run CNBC, the first cable financial network, bringing a talk radio sensibility to the small screen. Then, Rupert Murdoch hired him to implement the media mogul’s vision for a different kind of cable news network. Now, with Murdoch (whose News Corp. has recently acquired the Wall Street Journal), Ailes is launching the FOX News business channel in 2007. Over the span of several decades, Ailes has played a key role in the growing reach of conservatism, first in politics, then in mass media. Part history, part media criticism, part current events, Dark Genius tracks the rise, dominance, and relevance of political television, and how it has been used and abused by its master.

Three young geniuses from around the globe hatch a plot to trick a vicious warlord, infiltrate a mastermind's organization, protect their families, and save the world.