In May 1998, a stunning $36 billion merger was announced by Chrysler, the all-American automaker, and Daimler-Benz, the German manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz luxury sedans. This corporate marriage promised to rock the global auto industry, but when the dust settled, Daimler had bought Chrysler, and an American icon had lost its independence. Taken for a Ride follows the twists and turns on the road to DaimlerChrysler and is a cautionary tale of the risks and rewards of going global. “A book in the manner of Barbarians at the Gate-a spellbinding tale, juicy gossip and all, of how business is really done among the world’s top companies...full of fresh facts and insights on one of the most heavily covered business stories of the 1990s...it is as fun to read as it is informative.” -New York Times Book Review

A hardhitting account of the smoke screen created by the "big three" U.S. auto manufacturers over harmful emissions blows the lid off a concerted effort to mislead the American people and block attempts to clean up auto pollution. Original.

How does public transport work in an African city under neoliberalism? Who owns what in it? Who has the power to influence its shape and changes in it over time? What does it mean to be a precarious and informal worker in the private minibuses that provide public transport in Dar es Salaam? These are the main questions that inform this in-depth case study of Dar es Salaam's public transport system over more than forty years. The growth of cities and informal economies are two central manifestations of globalization in the developing world. Taken for a Ride addresses both, drawing on long-term fieldwork in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and charting its public transport system's journey from public to private provision. This new addition to the Critical Frontiers of Theory, Research and Practice in International Development Studies series investigates this shift alongside the increasing deregulation of the sector and the resulting chaotic modality of public transport. It reviews state attempts to regain control over public transport and documents how informal wage relations prevailed in the sector. The changing political attitude of workers towards employers and the state is investigated: from an initial incapacity to respond to exploitation, to the political organisation and unionisation which won workers concessions on labour rights. A longitudinal study of workers throws light on patterns of occupational mobility in the sector. The book ends with an analysis of the political and economic interests that shaped the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit in Dar es Salaam, and local resistance to it. Taken for a Ride is an interdisciplinary political economy of public transport, exposing the limitations of market fundamentalist and postcolonial appraoches to the study of economic informality, the urban experience in developing countries, and their failure to locate the agency of the urban poor within their economic and political structures. It is both a contribution to and a call for the contextualised study of neoliberalism.

Dr. Portal brought a baffling case to Mme. Storey: Dr. Edgar McComb was found shot dead in his office. It attracted very little notice simply because there were no sensational circumstances. Now that a month had passed, it still remained a mystery. The police had nothing to go on. No clues of any sort. Nobody saw the assailant enter or leave the building; no fingerprints were found in the room save those of the doctor himself. And even more baffling, no possible motive for the crime had been unearthed.

It's 1930. The stock market crashed. The Great Depression is beginning. Hollywood is starting to rot underneath its glamour and lights. Nobody knows this better than producer Paul Russell. He has to save a movie studio from financial ruin. All he has at his disposal are a stack of horror scripts, some old sets, and unknown actors. The Hollywood pecking order applies to people as much as studios. Actress Lillian Nelson learned this lesson shortly after arriving in Los Angeles. Although she is dating Paul, she refuses to let him give her parts at his studio. She wants to make it on her own. Her attempt to overcome obstacles in order to insert herself into the public's heart is the stuff dreams and nightmares are made of in Hollywood. James Cagney, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Louise Brooks, and Jack Warner act as your guides while Take Her for a Ride peels back the skin of Hollywood's most glamorous age to reveal a core of talented businessmen, competent directors, and radiant stars.

What happens when Mr. Baig, a wealthy and entitled tourist expectant of seeing dozens of tigers on his first ever visit to an Indian forest, finds his safari driver and guide struggling to show him even one? Taken for a Ride, a work in the unusual genre of wildlife fiction, tells a story of disparity, subjugation, and of collateral losses and tragic dichotomies, as it all unfolds over a single safari, derailing the course of several lives, not all of which are human.

What is pension, planning and or recovery? Getting ready for the journey ahead. Will you be prepared for retirement?