The Legend of HCA chronicles the exciting sometime turbulent story of one of America's most influential corporations. HCA's founding in 1968 started a revolution in the healthcare industry, not only in Nashville, where the company began, but across the entire country. HCA was one of the first investor-owned hospital companies in the nation. As such, the company pioneered an entirely new way of running hospitals. Over the years, HCA has been a leader in balancing and improving the nation's healthcare system. Today it is one of the most well-respected companies in the nation and arguably stands head and shoulders above other investor-owned hospital companies when it come to policies, ethics, and quality healthcare.

With sales of more than $13 billion, IBP is a world-leading producer of protein. In fact, one out of every three steaks and one of every five pork chops consumed in America today was produced by IBP. Yet remarkably, the company is less than 30 years old. Founders Andy Anderson and Currier J. Holman built IBP by applying seemingly simple concepts to one of America's most established industries. Instead of shipping live cattle across the country to stockyards in Chicago and on the East Coast, Currier Holman located processing plants in Iowa and Nebraska near the largest ranches. From there, they shipped vacuum - packed boxed beef, already trimmed and packaged, to supermarkets across the country. With this single idea, and an unwavering attention to quality and efficiency, IBP transformed the industry.

The origins of baseball are controversial. James A. Vlasich discusses the debates between two men intimately involved in nineteenth-century baseball, Henry Chadwick and Albert G. Spalding. Abner Graves of the Mills Commission claimed that Abner Doubleday had invented the game and he had done it in Cooperstown, New York. This claim was scrutinized at the time but the myth became etched into baseball history. Through the years, however, some critics have questioned the Mills Commission report. The problem is that the Baseball Hall of Fame is built on this shaky foundation. The lack of diligence on the part of Spalding's self-appointed committee has led to a credibility gap for the baseball shrine that continues a half century after its dedication. Indeed, the story of the building of the Baseball Hall of Fame is filled with intrigue worthy of a political thriller.

Like the machines it manufactures, Ingersoll-Rand is powerful, successful and uncompromising in quality, yet never flashy. Traditionally run by engineers, Ingersoll-Rand supplies the tools that shape some of the most important developments in the world, from Mount Rushmore to the world's largest hydro-electric facility currently under construction in China. Jeffrey L. Rodengen's book offers a fascinating look at this industrial giant, with stunning photographs and never-before-published information about the company that shapes development around the world. Individually boxed. 224 pp., 160 color, 165 black & white images.