The Koch Papers


Book Description

For more than three decades, Ed Koch has been one of America's most interesting and outspoken political figures. In this provocative new book, Koch with Rafael Medoff guides readers through the major battles in his life-long fight against anti-Semitism. Interviews, speeches, new essays, never-before published personal correspondence, and more highlight his leadership--on campuses, in the media, on the streets of New York City, and in the halls of power in Washington, DC. The book also features personal letters from Henry Louis Gates, former President George Bush, and other prominent figures. Koch will reveal startling information for the first time here, and his writings are controversial, piercing, teasing, and questioning. This book will ignite discussion for years to come




The Volga Germans


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Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City


Book Description

In 1978, Ed Koch assumed control of a city plagued by filth, crime, bankruptcy, and racial tensions. By the end of his mayoral run in 1989 and despite the Wall Street crash of 1987, his administration had begun rebuilding neighborhoods and infrastructure. Unlike many American cities, Koch's New York was growing, not shrinking. Gentrification brought new businesses to neglected corners and converted low-end rental housing to coops and condos. Nevertheless, not all the changes were positive--AIDS, crime, homelessness, and violent racial conflict increased, marking a time of great, if somewhat uneven, transition. For better or worse, Koch's efforts convinced many New Yorkers to embrace a new political order subsidizing business, particularly finance, insurance, and real estate, and privatizing public space. Each phase of the city's recovery required a difficult choice between moneyed interests and social services, forcing Koch to be both a moderate and a pragmatist as he tried to mitigate growing economic inequality. Throughout, Koch's rough rhetoric (attacking his opponents as "crazy," "wackos," and "radicals") prompted charges of being racially divisive. The first book to recast Koch's legacy through personal and mayoral papers, authorized interviews, and oral histories, this volume plots a history of New York City through two rarely studied yet crucial decades: the bankruptcy of the 1970s and the recovery and crash of the 1980s.




Kochland


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2019 * WINNER OF THE J ANTHONY LUKAS WORK-IN-PROGRESS AWARD * FINANCIAL TIMES’ BEST BOOKS OF 2019 * NPR FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2019 * FINALIST FOR THE FINACIAL TIMES/MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF 2019 * KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOKS OF 2019 * SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOKS OF 2019 “Superb…Among the best books ever written about an American corporation.” —Bryan Burrough, The New York Times Book Review Just as Steve Coll told the story of globalization through ExxonMobil and Andrew Ross Sorkin told the story of Wall Street excess through Too Big to Fail, Christopher Leonard’s Kochland uses the extraordinary account of how one of the biggest private companies in the world grew to be that big to tell the story of modern corporate America. The annual revenue of Koch Industries is bigger than that of Goldman Sachs, Facebook, and US Steel combined. Koch is everywhere: from the fertilizers that make our food to the chemicals that make our pipes to the synthetics that make our carpets and diapers to the Wall Street trading in all these commodities. But few people know much about Koch Industries and that’s because the billionaire Koch brothers have wanted it that way. For five decades, CEO Charles Koch has kept Koch Industries quietly operating in deepest secrecy, with a view toward very, very long-term profits. He’s a genius businessman: patient with earnings, able to learn from his mistakes, determined that his employees develop a reverence for free-market ruthlessness, and a master disrupter. These strategies made him and his brother David together richer than Bill Gates. But there’s another side to this story. If you want to understand how we killed the unions in this country, how we widened the income divide, stalled progress on climate change, and how our corporations bought the influence industry, all you have to do is read this book. Seven years in the making, Kochland “is a dazzling feat of investigative reporting and epic narrative writing, a tour de force that takes the reader deep inside the rise of a vastly powerful family corporation that has come to influence American workers, markets, elections, and the very ideas debated in our public square. Leonard’s work is fair and meticulous, even as it reveals the Kochs as industrial Citizens Kane of our time” (Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Private Empire).




New Addresses


Book Description

Kenneth Koch, who has already considerably "stretched our ideas of what it is possible to do in poetry" (David Lehman), here takes on the classic poetic device of apostrophe, or direct address. His use of it gives him yet another chance to say things never said before in prose or in verse and, as well, to bring new life to a form in which Donne talked to Death, Shelley to the West Wind, Whitman to the Earth, Pound to his Songs, O'Hara to the Sun at Fire Island. Koch, in this new book, talks to things important in his life -- to Breath, to World War Two, to Orgasms, to the French Language, to Jewishness, to Psychoanalysis, to Sleep, to his Heart, to Friendship, to High Spirits, to his Twenties, to the Unknown. He makes of all these "new addresses" an exhilarating autobiography of a most surprising and unforeseeable kind.




The Art of Poetry


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Essays, interviews, parodies and cartoons by a distinguished poet and teacher




Good Profit


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Learn how to apply the principles of Charles Koch’s revolutionary Market-Based Management® system to generate good profit in your organization, company, and life “This book helps show you the way to good profit—whether you work for an international supermarket chain, a medium-sized regional business, or your own start-up.”—John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO, Whole Foods Market The technological innovations, extreme politics, civil unrest, cyber attacks, demographic shifts, and global pandemic that have affected all businesses since this book was published have only confirmed Charles Koch’s belief that “the only reason a business should exist (and the only way it can legitimately survive long term) is to create value in a responsible way.” Hence, the principles in Good Profit are more important today than ever before. What exactly does Koch Industries, Inc., do and why is it so remarkably profitable? Koch’s name may not be on your home’s plywood, vehicle’s grille, smartphone’s connectors, or baby’s ultra-absorbent diapers but it makes them all. And Koch’s Market-Based Management® (MBM) system is what drives these innovations and many more. The core objective of MBM is to generate good profit. Good profit results from products and services that customers vote for freely with their dollars. It results from a bottom-up culture where employees are empowered to act entrepreneurially to discover customers’ preferences and the best ways to improve their lives. Drawing on six decades of interdisciplinary studies, experimental discovery, and practical implementation across Koch businesses worldwide, Charles Koch walks the reader through the five dimensions of MBM to show how to apply its framework in any business, industry, or organization of any size. Readers will learn how to: • Craft a vision for how to thrive in spite of increasingly rapid disruption and ever-changing consumer values • Select and retain a workforce possessing both virtue and talent • Create an environment of knowledge sharing that prizes respectful challenges from everyone at every level • Award employees with ownership and decision rights based on their comparative advantages and proven contributions, not job title • Motivate all employees to maximize their contributions by structuring incentives so compensation is limited only by the value they create A must-read for any leader, entrepreneur, or student, as well as anyone who wants a more civil, fair, and prosperous society, Good Profit is one of the greatest management books of all time.




Dark Money


Book Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Who are the immensely wealthy right-wing ideologues shaping the fate of America today? From the bestselling author of The Dark Side, an electrifying work of investigative journalism that uncovers the agenda of this powerful group. In her new preface, Jane Mayer discusses the results of the most recent election and Donald Trump's victory, and how, despite much discussion to the contrary, this was a huge victory for the billionaires who have been pouring money in the American political system. Why is America living in an age of profound and widening economic inequality? Why have even modest attempts to address climate change been defeated again and again? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers? In a riveting and indelible feat of reporting, Jane Mayer illuminates the history of an elite cadre of plutocrats—headed by the Kochs, the Scaifes, the Olins, and the Bradleys—who have bankrolled a systematic plan to fundamentally alter the American political system. Mayer traces a byzantine trail of billions of dollars spent by the network, revealing a staggering conglomeration of think tanks, academic institutions, media groups, courthouses, and government allies that have fallen under their sphere of influence. Drawing from hundreds of exclusive interviews, as well as extensive scrutiny of public records, private papers, and court proceedings, Mayer provides vivid portraits of the secretive figures behind the new American oligarchy and a searing look at the carefully concealed agendas steering the nation. Dark Money is an essential book for anyone who cares about the future of American democracy. National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist LA Times Book Prize Finalist PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Finalist Shortlisted for the Lukas Prize




Pencil & Paper Games


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Sons of Wichita


Book Description

Like the Rockefellers and the Kennedys, the Kochs are one of the most influential dynasties of the modern age, but they have never been the subject of a major biography -- until now. Not long after the death of his father, Charles Koch, then in his early 30s, discovered a letter the family patriarch had written to his sons. "You will receive what now seems to be a large sum of money," Fred Koch cautioned. "It may either be a blessing or a curse." Fred's legacy would become a blessing and a curse to his four sons-Frederick, Charles, and fraternal twins David and Bill-who in the ensuing decades fought bitterly over their birthright, the oil and cattle-ranching empire their father left behind in 1967. Against a backdrop of scorched-earth legal skirmishes, Charles and David built Koch Industries into one of the largest private corporations in the world-bigger than Boeing and Disney-and they rose to become two of the wealthiest men on the planet. Influenced by the sentiments of their father, who was present at the birth of the John Birch Society, Charles and David have spent decades trying to remake the American political landscape and mainline their libertarian views into the national bloodstream. They now control a machine that is a center of gravity within the Republican Party. To their supporters, they are liberating America from the scourge of Big Government. To their detractors, they are political "contract killers," as David Axelrod, President Barack Obama's chief strategist, put it during the 2012 campaign. Bill, meanwhile, built a multi-billion dollar energy empire all his own, and earned notoriety as an America's Cup-winning yachtsman, a flamboyant playboy, and as a litigious collector of fine wine and Western memorabilia. Frederick lived an intensely private life as an arts patron, refurbishing a series of historic homes and estates. Sons of Witchita traces the complicated lives and legacies of these four tycoons, as well as their business, social, and political ambitions. No matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum, the Kochs are one of the most influential dynasties of our era, but so little is publicly known about this family, their origins, how they make their money, and how they live their lives. Based on hundreds of interviews with friends, relatives, business associates, and many others, Sons of Witchita is the first major biography about this wealthy and powerful family-warts and all.