Congratulations to my friend A.J.Baime, whose new book, The Arsenal of Democracy, has just been published. I finished it last night, in a whoosh of excited reading. A.J. has done a tremendous job of telling story whose great sweep includes the rise of Nazism and the war in Europe; the development of the automobile, the internal conflicts in the Ford company and the Ford family; and the huge amount of creativity, destruction and sheer upheaval brought on by the challenge of creating the massive number of planes, tanks, trucks and guns that it took to win WW II. A.J.’s fluid style really keeps the story moving, and his sympathetic treatment of Edsel Ford illuminates an undeservedly forgotten figure. A.J. recently learned that his earlier book, the wonderful Go Like Hell, is being turned into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Congratulations, Big City Al!
