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The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando
by William J. MannEntertainment Weekly's BIG FALL BOOKS PREVIEW SelectionBest Book of 2019 -- Publisher's WeeklyBased on new and revelatory material from Brando’s own private archives, an award-winning film biographer presents a deeply-textured, ambitious, and definitive portrait of the greatest movie actor of the twentieth century, the elusive Marlon Brando, bringing his extraordinarily complex life into view as never before.The most influential movie actor of his era, Marlon Brando changed the way other actors perceived their craft. His approach was natural, honest, and deeply personal, resulting in performances—most notably in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront—that are without parallel. Brando was heralded as the American Hamlet—the Yank who surpassed British stage royalty Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, and Ralph Richardson as the standard of greatness in the mid-twentieth century. Brando’s impact on American culture matches his professional significance; he both challenged and codified our ideas of masculinity and sexuality. Brando was also one of the first stars to use his fame as a platform to address social, political, and moral issues, courageously calling out America’s deeply rooted racism.William Mann’s brilliant biography of the Hollywood legend illuminates this culture icon for a new age. Mann astutely argues that Brando was not only a great actor but also a cultural soothsayer, a Cassandra warning us about the challenges to come. Brando’s admonitions against the monetization of nearly every aspect of the culture were prescient. His public protests against racial segregation and discrimination at the height of the Civil Rights movement—getting himself arrested at least once—were criticized as being needlessly provocative. Yet those actions of fifty years ago have become a model many actors follow today.Psychologically astute and masterfully researched, based on new and revelatory material, The Contender explores the star and the man in full, including the childhood traumas that reverberated through his professional and personal life. It is a dazzling biography of our nation’s greatest actor that is sure to become an instant classic.The Contender includes sixteen pages of photographs.
The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power
by Max ChafkinA biography of venture capitalist and entrepreneur Peter Thiel, the enigmatic, controversial, and hugely influential power broker who sits at the dynamic intersection of tech, business, and politics &“Max Chafkin&’s The Contrarian is much more than a consistently shocking biography of Peter Thiel, the most important investor in tech and a key supporter of the Donald Trump presidency. It&’s also a disturbing history of Silicon Valley that will make you reconsider the ideological foundations of America&’s relentless engine of creative destruction.&”—Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store and Amazon UnboundSince the days of the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s, no industry has made a greater impact on the world than Silicon Valley. And few individuals have done more to shape Silicon Valley than Peter Thiel. The billionaire venture capitalist and entrepreneur has been a behind-the-scenes operator influencing countless aspects of our contemporary way of life, from the technologies we use every day to the delicate power balance between Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Washington. But despite his power and the ubiquity of his projects, no public figure is quite so mysterious.In the first major biography of Thiel, Max Chafkin traces the trajectory of the innovator's singular life and worldview, from his upbringing as the child of immigrant parents and years at Stanford as a burgeoning conservative thought leader to his founding of PayPal and Palantir, early investment in Facebook and SpaceX, and relationships with fellow tech titans Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Eric Schmidt. The Contrarian illuminates the extent to which Thiel has sought to export his values to the corridors of power beyond Silicon Valley, including funding the lawsuit that destroyed the blog Gawker and strenuously backing far-right political candidates, notably Donald Trump for president in 2016. Eye-opening and deeply reported, The Contrarian is a revelatory biography of a one-of-a-kind leader and an incisive portrait of a tech industry whose explosive growth and power is both thrilling and fraught with controversy.
The Controversialist: Arguments with Everyone, Left Right and Center
by Martin PeretzFrom his deep involvement in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s to his almost forty years at the head of the New Republic, Martin Peretz traces his personal history alongside those of the cultural and political centers—Harvard, Wall Street, Washington—in which he was a key player for decades.From 1974 to 2012, during his years as publisher and editor-in-chief of the New Republic, Martin Peretz was a familiar presence on the political scene. In its time under his leadership, the magazine was always fresh, erudite, contrarian, and brave. Anyone interested in finding out the most distinctive expert takes on the issues that mattered—whether they be domestic or international, cultural or political—knew that the New Republic was required reading. The Controversialist begins in a vibrant but tragedy-stricken community of Yiddish Jews in his native Bronx and takes Peretz, blessed with that rare trait of always being in the right place at the right time, into the same rooms as some of the most prominent writers, thinkers, businessmen, activists, and politicians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Peretz&’s insights into his relationships with these men and women—many of them his students, teachers, colleagues, friends, and, of course, enemies—are both original and illuminating. Through his examination of the personalities, not least his own, at the center of the events that have defined the postwar and neoliberal decades, Peretz makes a rich and compelling argument for the ideals that have been the focus of his life: liberalism, democracy, and Zionism. In revisiting this rich life, he considers, too, what will come next now that those ideals are no longer assured.
The Conversion of Herman the Jew
by Jean-Claude Schmitt Alex J. NovikoffSometime toward the middle of the twelfth century, it is supposed, an otherwise obscure figure, born a Jew in Cologne and later ordained as a priest in Cappenberg in Westphalia, wrote a Latin account of his conversion to Christianity. Known as the Opusculum, this book purportedly by "Herman, the former Jew" may well be the first autobiography to be written in the West after the Confessions of Saint Augustine. It may also be something else entirely.In The Conversion of Herman the Jew the eminent French historian Jean-Claude Schmitt examines this singular text and the ways in which it has divided its readers. Where some have seen it as an authentic conversion narrative, others have asked whether it is not a complete fabrication forged by Christian clerics. For Schmitt the question is poorly posed. The work is at once true and fictional, and the search for its lone author--whether converted Jew or not--fruitless. Herman may well have existed and contributed to the writing of his life, but the Opusculum is a collective work, perhaps framed to meet a specific institutional agenda.With agility and erudition, Schmitt examines the text to explore its meaning within the society and culture of its period and its participation in both a Christian and Jewish imaginary. What can it tell us about autobiography and subjectivity, about the function of dreams and the legitimacy of religious images, about individual and collective conversion, and about names and identities? In The Conversion of Herman the Jew Schmitt masterfully seizes upon the debates surrounding the Opusculum (the text of which is newly translated for this volume) to ponder more fundamentally the ways in which historians think and write.
The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism
by Deborah Baker*A 2011 National Book Award Finalist*A spellbinding story of renunciation, conversion, and radicalism from Pulitzer Prize-finalist biographer Deborah BakerWhat drives a young woman raised in a postwar New York City suburb to convert to Islam, abandon her country and Jewish faith, and embrace a life of exile in Pakistan? The Convert tells the story of how Margaret Marcus of Larchmont became Maryam Jameelah of Lahore, one of the most trenchant and celebrated voices of Islam's argument with the West. A cache of Maryam's letters to her parents in the archives of the New York Public Library sends the acclaimed biographer Deborah Baker on her own odyssey into the labyrinthine heart of twentieth-century Islam. Casting a shadow over these letters is the mysterious figure of Mawlana Abul Ala Mawdudi, both Maryam's adoptive father and the man who laid the intellectual foundations for militant Islam. As she assembles the pieces of a singularly perplexing life, Baker finds herself captive to questions raised by Maryam's journey. Is her story just another bleak chapter in a so-called clash of civilizations? Or does it signify something else entirely? And then there's this: Is the life depicted in Maryam's letters home and in her books an honest reflection of the one she lived? Like many compelling and true tales, The Convert is stranger than fiction. It is a gripping account of a life lived on the radical edge and a profound meditation on the cultural conflicts that frustrate mutual understanding.
The Conviction of Richard Nixon
by James Reston Jr.While Richard Nixon avoided conviction on impeachment charges by resigning from the White House, the 1977 televised interviews conducted with Nixon by David Frost convicted Nixon as a political pariah in the minds of many viewers. The author of this book served as the Watergate advisor to Frost for the interviews and here recounts his insider's view of the interviews. The text was written contemporaneously but is being published now for the first time. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir
by D. WatkinsReminiscent of the classic Random Family and The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, but told by the man who lived it, THE COOK UP is a riveting look inside the Baltimore drug trade portrayed in The Wire and an incredible story of redemption. The smartest kid on his block in East Baltimore, D. was certain he would escape the life of drugs, decadence, and violence that had surrounded him since birth. But when his brother Devin is shot-only days after D. receives notice that he's been accepted into Georgetown University-the plans for his life are exploded, and he takes up the mantel of his brother's crack empire. D. succeeds in cultivating the family business, but when he meets a woman unlike any he's known before, his priorities are once more put into question. Equally terrifying and hilarious, inspiring and heartbreaking, D.'s story offers a rare glimpse into the mentality of a person who has escaped many hells.
The Cook Who Defended Pearl Harbor: A Graphic Novel Biography of Doris "Dorie" Miller (Barrier Breakers)
by Shawn PryorA nonfiction graphic novel about Dorie Miller, a Navy cook who shot down enemy planes during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, saving countless lives.
The Cook's Tale: Life Below Stairs as it Really Was
by Tom Quinn Nancy JackmanNancy Jackman was born in 1907 in a remote Norfolk village. Her father was a ploughman, her mother a former servant who struggled to make ends meet in a cottage so small that access to the single upstairs room was via a ladder. The pace of life in that long-vanished world was dictated by the slow, heavy tread of the farm horse and though Nancy's earliest memories were of a green, sunny countryside still unspoiled by the motorcar, she also knew at first hand the harshness of a world where the elderly were forced to break stones on the roads and where school children were regularly beaten. Nancy left school at the age of twelve to work for a local farmer who forced her to stand in the rain when she made a mistake, physically abused her and eventually tried to rape her. Nancy continued to work as a cook until the 1950s, sustained by her determination to escape and find a life of her own.
The Cook's Tale: Life below stairs as it really was
by Tom Quinn Nancy JackmanNancy Jackman was born in 1907 in a remote Norfolk village. Her father was a ploughman, her mother a former servant who struggled to make ends meet in a cottage so small that access to the single upstairs room was via a ladder. The pace of life in that long-vanished world was dictated by the slow, heavy tread of the farm horse and though Nancy's earliest memories were of a green, sunny countryside still unspoiled by the motorcar, she also knew at first hand the harshness of a world where the elderly were forced to break stones on the roads and where school children were regularly beaten. Nancy left school at the age of twelve to work for a local farmer who forced her to stand in the rain when she made a mistake, physically abused her and eventually tried to rape her. Nancy continued to work as a cook until the 1950s, sustained by her determination to escape and find a life of her own.
The Cooked Seed: A Memoir
by Anchee MinMin returns to the story of her own life to give us the next chapter, an immigrant story that takes her from the shocking deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the promised land of America, without language, money, or a clear path.
The Cookie Cure: A Mother-Daughter Memoir
by Susan Stachler Laura StachlerA heartwarming memoir of a family that refused to give upWhen twenty-two-year-old Susan Stachler was diagnosed with cancer, her mother, Laura, was struck by déjà vu: the same illness that took her sister's life was threatening to take her daughter's too. Heartbroken but steadfast, Laura pledged to help Susan through the worst of her treatments. When they discovered that Laura's homemade ginger cookies soothed the side effects of Susan's chemo, the mother-daughter duo soon found themselves opening Susansnaps and sharing their gourmet gingersnaps with the world. Told with admirable grace and infinite hope, The Cookie Cure is about more than baked goods and cancer—it's about fighting for your life and for your dreams.
The Cool Gent: The Nine Lives of Radio Legend Herb Kent
by David Smallwood Herb Kent Mayor Richard M. DaleyWhen Herb Kent was a straight-A college student in the 1940s, his white professor told him, “You have the best voice in class, but you'll never make it in radio because you're a Negro.” This did not deter the poor kid from the Chicago housing projects who had decided on a radio career at age five. It was just one more obstacle to face head on and overcome. Known as the Cool Gent, the King of the Dusties, and the Mayor of Bronzeville, Herb Kent is one of radio's most illustrious and legendary stars. This fascinating autobiography details both the high and low points of Herb's life while providing a vivid picture of black music, culture, and personalities from the 1950s to today. Herb had a typical rock-and-roll lifestyle—drugs, alcohol, all-night partying, and women—eventually hitting rock bottom, where he finally faced his personal demons. At least nine times Herb came close to death, but through it all, he maintained his debonair, classy persona and his uncanny knack for picking timeless tunes. And he didn't save only himself; along the way, he blazed new trails for all African Americans and remains a role model for today's top deejays.
The Cool of the Evening: A Love Story
by Paula KurmanPaula Kurman shares her forty-year love story with baseball legend Jim Bouton in her heartfelt memoir, The Cool of the Evening. &“I am among the most fortunate of women. I loved Jim Bouton and was well and truly loved by him for more than four decades. It doesn&’t get any better than that.&” They met on October 15, 1977, at Bloomingdale&’s department store in Hackensack, New Jersey. Jim Bouton, Major League pitcher, twenty-one game winner for the New York Yankees, and author of the iconic exposé Ball Four, and Dr. Paula Kurman, professor of interpersonal communication at Hunter College. It was love at first sight. Paula knew absolutely nothing about baseball when they met, or any other sport for that matter. And Jim had never heard of interpersonal communication, but he thought reading nonverbal behavior was creepy. Yet despite their obvious differences, Paula and Jim were soulmates. Together they created a partnership of equals that was greater than the sum of their parts. It lasted forty-two years. Laced through with humor, passion, and intelligence, Paula shares the intimacy and adventures of their married life through the blending of families, moving from suburban New Jersey to rural Massachusetts, where they built a home on top of a hill deep in the wilderness of the Berkshires, the shattering blow of the death of a daughter, the healing of stonework and ballroom dancing—and finally, the devastating long-term illness that took Jim&’s life in the summer of 2019. Through it all, to the very end, Paula and Jim&’s passionate love for each other grew and deepened. The Cool of the Evening is a celebration of their remarkable relationship.
The Cooler King: The True Story of William Ash, the Greatest Escaper of World War II
by Patrick BishopThe true story of William Ash: Spitfire Pilot, P.O.W. and WWII's Greatest Escaper When American fighter pilot William Ash’s plane was shot down over France in 1942, he was captured by German forces and placed in a Nazi prison camp. Ash, bolstered by the grit and ingenuity he developed during his upbringing in Texas during the Great Depression, would spend the rest of the war defying the Nazis and striving to escape from every POW camp in which they incarcerated him. His thrilling exploits made him the inspiration for Steve McQueen's character in The Great Escape. Ash’s is a saga full of incident and high drama, climaxing in a breakout through a tunnel dug in the latrines of the Oflag XXIB prison camp in Poland—a great untold episode of World War II. Alongside William Ash is a cast of fascinating characters, including Roger Bushell, who would go on to lead the Great Escape, and Paddy Barthropp, a dashing Battle of Britain pilot who became Ash’s best friend and shared many of his adventures. The Cooler King is the uplifting story of one man’s extraordinary resilience in the face of impossible odds, and stands as an inspirational testament to the invincible spirit of liberty.
The Cooper's Wife Is Missing
by Joan Hoff Marian YeatesIn 1895 twenty-six-year-old Bridget Cleary disappeared from her cottage in rural County Tipperary and remained missing for several days. At last her body was discovered, bent, broken, and badly burned in a shallow grave. Within a few days, her unimaginable story came to light: for almost a week before her death she had been confined, starved, threatened, physically and verbally abused, exorcised, and finally burned to death by her husband, father, aunt, cousins, and neighbors, who had collectively confused a simple flu with possession by the fairies. In The Cooper's Wife Is Missing, Joan Hoff and Marian Yeates try to make sense of this outlandish, unfathomable, medieval "trial" and murder. Drawing on firsthand accounts, contemporary newspaper reports, police records, trial testimony, and a rich wealth of folklore, they weave a mesmerizing fireside tale of magic, madness, and mystery. This is narrative history at its evocative best.
The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency (The Copenhagen Trilogy #3)
by Tove DitlevsenCalled "a masterpiece" by The Guardian, this courageous and honest trilogy from Tove Ditlevsen, a pioneer in the field of genre-bending confessional writing, explores themes of family, sex, motherhood, abortion, addiction, and being an artist. This single-volume hardcover contains all three volumes of her memoirsTove Ditlevsen is today celebrated as one of the most important and unique voices in twentieth-century Danish literature, and The Copenhagen Trilogy (1969–71) is her acknowledged masterpiece. Childhood tells the story of a misfit child’s single-minded determination to become a poet; Youth describes her early experiences of sex, work, and independence. Dependency picks up the story as the narrator embarks on the first of her four marriages and goes on to describe her horrible descent into drug addiction, enabled by her sinister, gaslighting doctor-husband.Throughout, the narrator grapples with the tension between her vocation as a writer and her competing roles as daughter, wife, mother, and drug addict, and she writes about female experience and identity in a way that feels very fresh and pertinent to today’s discussions around feminism. Ditlevsen’s trilogy is remarkable for its intensity and its immersive depiction of a world of complex female friendships, family and growing up—in this sense, it’s Copenhagen's answer to Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels. She can also be seen as a spiritual forerunner of confessional writers like Karl Ove Knausgaard, Annie Ernaux, Rachel Cusk and Deborah Levy. Her trilogy is drawn from her own experiences but reads like the most compelling kind of fiction.Born in a working-class neighborhood in Copenhagen in 1917, Ditlevsen became famous for her poetry while still a teenager, and went on to write novels, stories and memoirs before committing suicide in 1976. Having been dismissed by the critical establishment in her lifetime as a working-class, female writer, she is now being rediscovered and championed as one of Denmark's most important modern authors, with "Tove fever" gripping readers.
The Copper Scroll Project: An Ancient Secret Fuels the Battle for the Temple Mount
by Shelley NeeseThe history behind the Copper Scroll and the true story of Jim Barfield&’s quest for its treasure.Whether the objects are of legend or history, certain ancient mysteries arrest the imaginations of every generation. These antiquities refuse to be forgotten by the human spirit—hidden sufficiently to evade discovery, but historically prominent enough to leave a smattering of clues. Many explorers have fallen prey to fortune&’s siren call, spending their lifetimes searching for the artifacts that promise to alter human history.The Copper Scroll Project is a relative newcomer to the modern treasure hunt. Part of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection, the Copper Scroll is unlike any of the leather and papyrus documents, though not simply for its copper plates. The relic reads like a coded map, listing dozens of hiding spots where tithes and vessels thought to be secreted from the Jewish Temple were stored for safekeeping. More than fifty years after archaeologists found this unique artifact in a cave near Qumran, four adventurers have dared to chase after the scroll&’s priceless relics.&“A unique introduction not only to a famous biblical mystery but to the world of American Christian interest in Israel, which remains opaque or bewildering to many outsiders, and is often caricatured.&”—Matti Friedman, author of The Aleppo Codex&“Equal parts mystery, treasure hunt and erudite elucidation of biblical history.&”—Chanan Tigay, author of The Last Moses &“Neese&’s narrative pacing and story-telling is masterful. She gets the political and religious nuances of contemporary Israel.&”—Elliot Jager, Jerusalem-based author and former editorial page editor at The Jerusalem Post
The Corfu Trilogy: My Family and Other Animals; Birds, Beasts and Relatives; and The Garden of the Gods (The Corfu Trilogy #3)
by Gerald DurrellNational Bestseller: The complete trilogy that inspired Masterpiece production The Durrells in Corfu in one volume. The tales of a naturalist and his family, who left England for the Greek island of Corfu—where they interacted with fascinating locals of both human and animal varieties—these memoirs have become beloved bestsellers and inspired the delightful series that aired on PBS television. Included in this three-book collection are: My Family and Other Animals: Ten-year-old Gerald Durrell arrives on sun-drenched Corfu with this family and pursues his interest in natural history, making friends with the island&’s fauna—from toads and tortoises to scorpions and geckos—while reveling in the joyous chaos of growing up in an unconventional household. Birds, Beasts and Relatives: Written after a boyhood spent studying zoology, this memoir is part nature guide, part coming-of-age tale, and all charmingly funny memoir. The Garden of the Gods: In the conclusion of the trilogy, Durrell shares more tales of wild animals and his even wilder family, including his mother, Louisa, and his siblings Lawrence, Leslie, and Margo, in the years before World War II. &“[Durrell&’s] books have an unfailing charm. . . . It is a tribute to his skill that one never tires of his accounts&” (Chicago Tribune). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Gerald Durrell including rare photos from the author&’s estate.
The Corgi and the Queen
by Caroline L. PerryEven a monarch needs a best friend and Queen Elizabeth II found one in a corgi pup she named Susan. From princesshood to queendom the pair forged an unbreakable bond, with Susan even participating in Elizabeth’s wedding day and joining her on honeymoon with Prince Philip. Over the course of her remarkable seventy-year reign the Queen had more than thirty corgi companions, and almost all were direct descendants of her cherished Susan.Godwin Books
The Corncrake and The Lysander
by Finlay J. MacdonaldAs the author set out from his tiny village for high school in Tarbert, Hitler's military strength had begun to menace the people of Europe. But to Finlay the coming fray was just one more exciting prospect along with living in Grandfather's house, making friends and meeting the beautiful girls of his adolescent dreams.
The Corncrake and The Lysander
by Finlay J. MacdonaldAs the author set out from his tiny village for high school in Tarbert, Hitler's military strength had begun to menace the people of Europe. But to Finlay the coming fray was just one more exciting prospect along with living in Grandfather's house, making friends and meeting the beautiful girls of his adolescent dreams.
The Coronation Of Queen Elizabeth (Great Events #8)
by Gillian ClementsThe book tells the story of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. From her birth, the royal experiences of World War II, to the exciting celebrations of her accession to the throne, follow her story through simple text and illustrations.This book is part of a series of books, Great Events, which are suitable for ages 6-12. They tell the stories of great events in history. Written by successful authors, they are enjoyable reads which are packed with facts and illustrations.Each book includes a timeline of key dates, a quiz and index.
The Coroner Series: America's Most Controversial Medical Examiner Tells All (Coroner)
by Thomas T. Noguchi Joseph DiMonaA New York Times–bestselling author and renowned Los Angeles medical examiner challenges the verdicts in America&’s most controversial celebrity deaths. &“Dr. Thomas T. Noguchi encountered the best and the worst of Los Angeles—movie stars and gangsters, politicians and millionaires. . . . But by the time &‘the coroner to the stars&’ met them, they were on his autopsy table&” (Los Angeles Times). In his New York Times–bestselling autobiography and its fascinating follow-up—now together in a single volume—Dr. Noguchi recounts his stormy career, divulges his innovative techniques, and reveals the full story behind his most intriguing investigations. Coroner: Dr. Noguchi sheds light on his most controversial cases: the suspicious drowning death of Natalie Wood, Marilyn Monroe&’s suicide, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the circumstances behind the drug-related deaths of Janis Joplin and John Belushi, the murder of Sharon Tate. and more. Coroner at Large: Often called the &“Detective of Death,&” Dr. Noguchi continues to probe the most famous fatalities in recent pop-culture history: the drowning of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, the Hollywood murder of Sal Mineo, the suicide of Freddie Prinze, the slaying of &“Playmate of the Year&” Dorothy Stratten, Elvis Presley&’s final hours, and more. Noguchi&’s forensic acumen also provides new clues to the fates of such historical figures as Gen. George Custer, Napoleon, and Adolf Hitler. In both riveting accounts, Dr. Noguchi documents his own investigations and pioneering work in the field, as the mysteries of death—natural and unnatural—are unraveled by &“one of the greats of modern forensic pathology&” (Barry A. J. Fisher, director of the Los Angeles County sheriff&’s crime lab).
The Corporate Financiers
by Colin ReadThe Corporate Financiers is the fifth book in aseries of discussions about the great minds in the history and theory offinance. While the series addresses the contributions of scholars in ourunderstanding of modern finance, this volume presents the ways in which acorporation creates value. Morethan two centuries ago, Adam Smith explained the concept of division of laborand the efficiencies of specialization as the mechanism in which a firm createsvalue. However, corporations now find themselves outsourcing some processes toother firms as an alternative way to create value. There must be other economicforces at work than simply the internal efficiencies of a firm. We begin bydescribing the work of a rather obscure scholar named John Burr Williams who demonstratedin 1938 how the earnings of a firm are capitalized into corporate value throughits stock price. We then delve into the inner workings of the moderncorporation by describing the contributions of Nobel Memorial Prize winnersRonald Coase and Oliver Williamson. More than any others, these scholarscreated a renewed appreciation for our understanding of the institutionaldetail of the modern corporation in reducing costs and increasing efficiency. WhileCoase and Williamson provided meaningful descriptions of the advantage of acorporation, they did not offer prescriptions for the avenues the corporationcan create more value in an era when new technologies make outsourcing andtelecommuting increasingly possible. Michael Jensen and William Mecklingdescribe in greater detail the nature of the implicit contracts a corporationemploys, and recommend remedies to various problems that arise when the goalsof the corporation are not aligned with the incentives of its agents. We alsodescribe the further nuances to these relationships as offered by Armen Alchianand Harold Demsetz. We treat the lives of these extraordinary individuals wholooked at a very familiar problem in a sufficiently novel light to change theway all look at corporations ever since. That is the test of genius.