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Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric. By Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. 384 pp. Paperback, $28.00. ISBN: 978-0-358-25041-8. The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America—and How to Undo His Legacy. By David Gelles. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022. 272 pp. Hardcover, $28.00. ISBN: 978-1-982-17644-0.

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Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric. ByThomas GrytaandTed Mann. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. 384 pp. Paperback, $28.00. ISBN: 978-0-358-25041-8.
The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America—and How to Undo His Legacy. ByDavid Gelles. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2022. 272 pp. Hardcover, $28.00. ISBN: 978-1-982-17644-0.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2023

Richard S. Tedlow
Richard S. Tedlow*
Affiliation:
Harvard Business School, Boston, MA
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Extract

General Electric and Jack Welch are dead. Now they belong to the ages, which means they are the property of historians. What are we to make of them?

Journalism has been called the first draft of history, and under review here are two books by journalists: Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric by Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann and The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America—and How to Undo His Legacy by David Gelles.

Type
Review Essay
Information
Business History Review , Volume 97 , Issue 1 , Spring 2023 , pp. 145 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © 2023 The President and Fellows of Harvard College

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References

1 “Now he belongs to the ages” is the phrase that then Secretary of War Edwin Stanton is said to have uttered at Lincoln's death.