Ross T. reviewed Threshold Resistance: The Extraordinary Career of a Luxury Retailing Pioneer on + 4 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
From my review printed in Corporate Counsel magazine:
A favorite pastime for aging entrepreneurs is to pen a memoir about why their wealth-gathering was different from everyone else's. A. Alfred Taubman couldn't resist this impulse, despite his realization that "the world surely doesn't need another book written by an older man telling how he became a self-made billionaire." Fortunately for the readers of Threshold Resistance: The Extraordinary Career of a Luxury Retailing Pioneer, the 80-something businessman has had a more colorful life than the average plutocrat.
Taubman made his fortune as a shopping mall developer and is responsible for some of the most successful retail centers in the country, including The Mall of Short Hills in New Jersey and Beverley Center in Los Angeles. However, Taubman is better known these days for his conviction and jail sentence in a price-fixing scandal at Christie's, the venerable auction house that he chaired. Although his autobiography disappoints as an instructional business book, Taubman's willingness to talk (relatively) frankly about his time in the clink turns Threshold Resistance into an oddly entertaining read ....
Taubman's book isn't for those who want the backstory of a criminal case (he blames others for the Christie's price-fixing scandal ).... It is, however, a unique and entertaining entry in a stale genre--if not always for the reasons Taubman intended.
A favorite pastime for aging entrepreneurs is to pen a memoir about why their wealth-gathering was different from everyone else's. A. Alfred Taubman couldn't resist this impulse, despite his realization that "the world surely doesn't need another book written by an older man telling how he became a self-made billionaire." Fortunately for the readers of Threshold Resistance: The Extraordinary Career of a Luxury Retailing Pioneer, the 80-something businessman has had a more colorful life than the average plutocrat.
Taubman made his fortune as a shopping mall developer and is responsible for some of the most successful retail centers in the country, including The Mall of Short Hills in New Jersey and Beverley Center in Los Angeles. However, Taubman is better known these days for his conviction and jail sentence in a price-fixing scandal at Christie's, the venerable auction house that he chaired. Although his autobiography disappoints as an instructional business book, Taubman's willingness to talk (relatively) frankly about his time in the clink turns Threshold Resistance into an oddly entertaining read ....
Taubman's book isn't for those who want the backstory of a criminal case (he blames others for the Christie's price-fixing scandal ).... It is, however, a unique and entertaining entry in a stale genre--if not always for the reasons Taubman intended.
This copy has a what I think is a signed book plate on the title page.
