|
|
Executive Times |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
2006 Book Reviews |
|||
|
|
Rome, Inc.
by |
|||
|
Rating: |
* |
|||
|
|
(Read only if your interest is strong) |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Minimal Stanley Bing (Gil Schwartz in real life) can write
the funniest pieces about corporate life, capturing both characters and
situations deftly. His regular column in Fortune
has become a “must read” in every issue. While I’ve enjoyed some of his book
length works in the past, Rome,
Inc. was disappointing. Bing came across as if he were forced to complete
an assignment that he found mildly interesting, and went through the motions
to complete it. There were glimpses of his skill, but not nearly enough to
recommend this book. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 6,
“Marius, the First Mogul,” pp. 66-69: Caius Marius was born to parents who had nothing
and who were nobody. From start to finish, he was the quintessential
self-made man. In the ancient world, that was an amazing thing, and only
Rome, Inc., up to that point in history, could have created the climate of
entrepreneurial opportunity in which a poor little ragamuffin from the
stinky slums of the city could rise to be consul—the highest position in the
land!— more times than any other Roman in the
history of the Republic. Okay, he didn’t deserve the job a couple of times,
and he sort of stole it once or twice, but that’s pretty impressive, too,
right? Marius was a crazy,
juiced-up, bombastically angry mother, and he wouldn’t stay down, no matter
what. There was a statue of the man himself at Plutarch wrote. “Being
naturally valiant and warlike, and more acquainted also with the discipline
of the camp than of the city, he could not moderate his passion when in
authority.” I don’t know about you, but that gives me a nice frisson of
recognition. He was rude, too. One time,
at a celebration of one of his great triumphs, he came and immediately departed, showing no interest in the performance because
it was in Greek, a language he never took the trouble to learn, partially
because it was often taught by slaves upon whom he looked down. In fact, the
historian notes, he could have done with a couple of Greek graces, or he
might have never “brought his incomparable actions, both in war and peace, to
so unworthy a conclusion, or wrecked himself, so to say, upon an old age of
cruelty and vindictiveness, through passion, ill-timed ambition, and
insatiable cupidity” Passion. Ill-timed ambition. Insatiable cupidity. Makes
you feel kind of at home, doesn’t it? Marius was raised in a
little cow town well outside of Marius began his working
life as a foot soldier fighting for Scipio Africanus,
who you will remember was instrumental in turning In a truly fortunate stroke
for the young mogul-to-be, his boss saw him actually kill a man in
hand-to-hand combat. Later, at a party as his betters sucked up the free
scotch and wolfed down the pigs in a blanket and teeny quesadillas, the
subject arose, in that great corporate atmosphere of macho drunkenness and
swaggering power, of who might be fit to succeed Scipio himself, at which
point the old man clapped Young Marius on the shoulder and said, “Hey! Why
not my man Marius here?” At that moment, Marius saw his future, and it was
not simply the future of a sales weasel. From that time forth he had his eye
on the kind of office that has its own bathroom and two assistants in the
antechamber outside. Coming back from his
initial gig, full of pith and vinegar, with an ego the size of his ambition,
Marius threw himself into politics. Through family connections, he had
himself named a tribune of the people, a post that
derived its power directly from the amount of kissing up you did to the
common corporate employee. He immediately introduced a piece of legislation
that would have limited the power of the big noises that ran the judiciary,
for Marius’s self-interest lay in casting his lot with the people, which in
that day made him a man of the Left. This did not sit well with
Cotta, the senior officer at the time, who got the Senate to attack Marius
for proposing it. This was no light thing back then. People who annoyed
others in politics often found themselves in prison, or even running down the
street with their sheets flying, an armed mob hired by one partisan or
another screaming behind them for blood. Gangs were routinely hired by one
senator or another to off an obnoxious adversary, especially one who was not
a patrician. But was our Marius worried?
Was he scared? Did he scurry around behind the scenes trying to get this
little problem with his superiors, who were older and presumably more honed
in statecraft, solved? Most importantly did he back off his legislation?
Okay those are all rhetorical questions. Of course he didn’t. What he did was this: he
marched into the Senate, which was far more impressive than any boardroom any
of us have ever been in, and told Cotta that if he didn’t back off he would
have him thrown into prison. In my opinion,
this excerpt was one of the best passages in Rome Inc.
If you find that you liked this a lot, by all means, read and enjoy Rome Inc.
If you expect more from Bing, continue to read his Fortune columns, and look to his next longer work for something
which matches his potential. Steve Hopkins,
April 24, 2006 |
|||
|
Buy Rome,
Inc. @ amazon.com |
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
Go to Executive Times
Archives |
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the May 2006
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Rome
Inc.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
