The name Waldorf Astoria conjures images of Gilded Age opulence for the elite and the personalities that illuminated the Gilded Age in New York. Visit the old location on Fifth and 33rd and the current day incarnation on Park Avenue. Famed throughout the world, New York's Waldorf Astoria is quite simply the grandest of all grand hotels. Host to emperors, rajahs, potentates, and plutocrats--not to mention every US president since Grover Cleveland--its name has become synonymous with the epi...

Investment Banking: Institutions, Politics, and Law provides an economic rationale for the dominant role of investment banks in the capital markets, and uses it to explain both the historical evolution of the investment banking industry and also recent changes to its organization. Although investment decisions rely upon price-relevant information, it is impossible to establish property rights over it and hence is very hard to coordinate its exchange. The authors argue that investm...

"Claridge's: The Cookbook is a sophisticated addition to your cookbook collection - and a purse-friendly alternative to an overnight stay."Stylist"...not that I intend to die, but when I do, I don't want to go to heaven, I want to go to Claridge's" Spencer Tracy"I love to check myself into Claridge's now and then for a few nights - just to spoil myself" Jade Jagger"When...

In this #1 New York Times bestseller, the CEO of Starbucks recounts the story and leadership lessons behind the global coffee company's comeback and continued success.In 2008, Howard Schultz decided to return as the CEO of Starbucks to help restore its financial health and bring the company back to its core values. In Onward, he shares this remarkable story, revealing how, during one of the most tumultuous economic periods in American history, Sta...

Starbucked will be the first book to explore the incredible rise of the Starbucks Corporation and the caffeine-crazy culture that fueled its success. Part Fast Food Nation, part Bobos in Paradise, Starbucked combines investigative heft with witty cultural observation in telling the story of how the coffeehouse movement changed our everyday lives, from our evolving neighborhoods and workplaces to the ways we shop, socialize, and self-medicate.In

In this insider’s look into the world’s biggest tech company, former CEO and SVP of Google share how they helped engineer a new strategy and philosophy to help them thrive—a perfect book for seasoned business employees and the tech curious.Today, Google is a global icon that regularly pushes the boundaries of innovation in a variety of fields. How Google Works is an entertaining, page-turning primer containing lessons that Google Executive Chairman and ex-CEO Eric ...

Chances are…you are looking at yours right now. They are--quite literally--everywhere. US President Barack Obama admits he cannot live without it. Oprah Winfrey, reigning queen of daytime TV, declared on air that the BlackBerry is one of her "favorite things." BusinessWeek put the case for owning one bluntly in an article entitled simply: "No BlackBerry. No Life." From its relatively modest debut in 1999, the BlackBerry has emerged almost overnight to become the most necessary and sought afte...

A look inside New York's icon of luxury: "Reading [ The Hotel] is at least as enjoyable—and certainly less expensive—than staying at the Plaza" ( Publishers Weekly).When it opened its doors in 1907, the Plaza was considered the world's finest luxury hotel. Since then, the grand building at the southern tip of Central Park has hosted kings and queens, the rich and famous, and countless world leaders. And like any hotel, it has seen its share of crim...

Most people think hotel employees are effortlessly cheerful, naturally helpful, and genuinely like their work.Most people are wrong.Find out what really goes on in the world of hospitality with this hilarious book full of funny and absurd stories, anecdotes told in dialogue, factoids, and hoax pop quizzes by two veteran concierges who paid their way while working at a combined 50 hotels in and around Times Square. They are very pleased to help you learn:· The Truth A...

Ask consumers and users what names they associate with the multibillion dollar personal computer market, and they will answer IBM, Apple, Tandy, or Lotus. The more knowledgable of them will add the likes of Microsoft, Ashton-Tate, Compaq, and Borland. But no one will say Xerox. Fifteen years after it invented personal computing, Xerox still means "copy."Fumbling the Future tells how one of America's leading corporations invented the technology for one of the fastest-growin...

A photographic history of the family-owned Pennsylvania company that became a household name and a global success story.The Zippo Manufacturing Company was founded in 1932 in Bradford, Pennsylvania, by George G. Blaisdell, who designed the first Zippo lighter in 1933; since then, Zippo has produced nearly four hundred million lighters. The product line eventually expanded to include tape measures and pocket knives. Zippo entered the specialty advertising market in 1...

In June 2000, Edgar Bronfman Jr. sold Seagram Co. to French media giant Vivendi in a $34-billion deal. Young, handsome and fabulously rich, Edgar Jr. seemed finally to have silenced the detractors who for fifteen years had scorned him, calling him a naïve dilettante and “the star-struck whisky king.”As the third-generation president and CEO of a family dynasty in the booze business, Edgar Jr. had made controversial corporate decisions. In 1995 he sold Seagram’s holding in the secur...