Tim O'Reilly

Keel Hunt

How Ingram Transformed the World of Books

The Family Business

Lamar Alexander

Coup is the behind-the-scenes story of an abrupt political transition, unprecedented in US history. Based on 163 interviews, Hunt describes how collaborators came together from opposite sides of the political aisle and, in an extraordinary few hours, reached agreement that the corruption and madness of the sitting Governor of Tennessee, Ray Blanton, must be stopped. The sudden transfer of power that caught Blanton unawares was deemed necessary because of what one FBI agent called "the state's most heinous political crime in half a century"—a scheme of selling pardons for cash. On January 17, 1979, driven by new information that some of the worst criminals in the state's penitentiaries were about to be released (and fears that James Earl Ray might be one of them), a small bipartisan group chose to take charge. Senior Democratic leaders, friends of the sitting governor, together with the Republican governor-elect Lamar Alexander (now US Senator from Tennessee), agreed to oust Blanton from office before another night fell. It was a maneuver unique in American political history. Expanded edition, with a newly discovered account of the events by Senator Lamar Alexander: "In December 2015 something unexpected happened. Keel [Hunt] delivered to my Nashville office a brown three-ring binder. He had only recently discovered it in a box that had been in storage for thirty years." —Senator Lamar Alexander This binder contained the forgotten typescript, written in 1985, of Alexander's recollections of the events leading up to his early inauguration on January 17, 1979. In this expanded edition of Coup, the Senator's 22,000-word text has been added as a lost footnote to Hunt's definitive account. From the foreword by John L. Seigenthaler: "The individual stories of those government officials involved in the coup—each account unique, but all of them intersecting—were scattered like disconnected pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on the table of history until the author conceived this book. Perhaps because it happened so quickly, and without major disagreement, protest, or dissent, this truly historic moment has been buried in the public mind. In unearthing the drama in gripping detail, Keel Hunt assures that the 'dark day' will be remembered as a bright one in which conflicted politicians came together in the public interest."

The Day the Democrats Ousted Their Governor, Put Republican Lamar Alexander in Office Early, and Stopped a Pardon Scandal

Coup

The first book to tell the story of one of the world’s most influential media businesses, The Family Business draws on more than 70 interviews with company insiders as well as book-industry luminaries to present the Ingram story and how a little-known Nashville-based company grew to play a pivotal role in transforming book publishing around the world. The history of the Ingram Content Group is one of the most important and remarkable business stories that almost no one knows. Launched as a favor to a family friend, it started as a local textbook distributor—one tiny division within a thriving corporation focused on oil, construction supplies, and shipping. It grew into the world’s largest book wholesaler, then into the most influential and innovative supplier of infrastructure and services to publishers around the world. Over the past 50 years, from its headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, Ingram has played a pivotal role in modernizing the book business. Two members of the founding family have led the way: Bronson Ingram, a tough-minded industrialist who instinctively recognized a golden opportunity to apply modern efficiencies to antiquated logistical systems, and Bronson’s son John Ingram, an “intrapreneur” with a keen understanding of both the opportunities and the risks created by the new digital technologies. Led by these two brilliant managers, Ingram has used its unparalleled industry-wide connections to help transform book publishing from a tradition-bound business into a dynamic, global twenty-first century powerhouse. Now, for the first time, The Family Business captures the whole story. In its pages, readers will learn about: The introduction of the Ingram microfiche reader in 1972 and how it catapulted book retailing into the electronic eraIngram’s network of coast-to-coast distribution centers turning U.S. book publishing into a truly national business for the first timeIngram using fast-growing video, software, magazine, and international wholesaling operations to create a phenomenal record of expansion, growing from a million-dollar company into a billion-dollar giant in just two decadesTwo of book publishing’s most powerful organizations—Ingram and Barnes & Noble—almost coming within a hair’s breadth of merging, and how the deal fell apart at the eleventh hourIngram’s unparalleled ability to rapidly fulfill product orders empowering Amazon’s unique customer service model and enabling its explosive growthLightning Source, a technological marvel spawned by Ingram, converting the “long tail” of niche books from a costly headache for publishers and retailers into a steady source of profitable salesIngram’s transformation of the book supply chain enabling countless booksellers and publishers to survive and even thrive in the disruptive era of Covid-19 Today, with Ingram’s expanding portfolio of service and infrastructure businesses playing an ever-growing role in the world of publishing, the company stands ready to help lead the industry into an era of even more dramatic change. The Family Business is the first book to recount the story of this strategic powerhouse that everyone in the publishing industry does business with, and that practically everyone admires—but that few people really understand. A must-read for people in the book business and the world of media, and anyone else who wants to understand how this vastly influential industry really works, this book fascinates with the story of the ways today’s electronic information technologies are transforming the world.

The latter third of the twentieth century was a time of fundamental political transition across the South as increasing numbers of voters began to choose Republican candidates over Democrats. Yet in the 1980s and '90s, reform-focused policymaking—from better schools to improved highways and health care—flourished in Tennessee. This was the work of moderate leaders from both parties who had a capacity to work together "across the aisle." The Tennessee story, as the Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham observes in his foreword to this book, offers striking examples of bipartisan cooperation on many policy fronts—and a mode of governing that provides lessons for America in this frustrating era of partisan stalemate. For more on Crossing the Aisle and author Keel Hunt, visit KeelHunt.com.

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