The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America
One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Non fiction Books of 2011.
From modest beginnings as a tea shop, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company became the largest retailer in the world. It was a juggernaut, with nearly sixteen thousand stores. But its explosive growth made it a mortal threat to mom-and-pop grocery stores across the nation. Main Street fought back tooth and nail, leading the Hoover, Roosevelt, and Truman administrations to investigate the Great A&P. In a remarkable court case, the government pressed criminal charges against the company for selling food too cheaply-and won.
In The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America, the acclaimed historian Marc Levinson tells the story of a struggle between small business and big business that tore America apart. George and John Hartford took over their father's business and reshaped it again and again, turning it into a vertically integrated behemoth that paved the way for every big-box retailer to come. George demanded a rock-solid balance sheet; John was the marketer-entrepreneur who led A&P through seven decades of rapid changes. Together, they set the stage for the modern consumer economy by turning an archaic retail industry into a highly efficient system for distributing food at low cost.
Business & EconomicsCorporate & Business HistoryHistoryUnited States20th Century
RELEASED2012
PUBLISHERFarrar, Straus and Giroux
LENGTH384
LANGUAGEEN
American economist, historian, and journalist NOTE: LoC uses two different identities for the same author (saying "Email from Library of Congress (Paul Frank), September 23, 2020(per communication from Marc Levinson, use the access point Levinson, Marc, 1953- for works he wrote in his capacity as CRS [Congressional Research Service] staff member. For his other works, use the access point Levinson, Marc)"), but Wikidata and Open Library treat him as a single author. Levinson, Marc https://id.loc.gov/authorities/no2020111414 Levinson, Marc, 1953- https://id.loc.gov/authorities/n88063626
The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America
One of The Wall Street Journal's Best Non fiction Books of 2011.
From modest beginnings as a tea shop, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company became the largest retailer in the world. It was a juggernaut, with nearly sixteen thousand stores. But its explosive growth made it a mortal threat to mom-and-pop grocery stores across the nation. Main Street fought back tooth and nail, leading the Hoover, Roosevelt, and Truman administrations to investigate the Great A&P. In a remarkable court case, the government pressed criminal charges against the company for selling food too cheaply-and won.
In The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America, the acclaimed historian Marc Levinson tells the story of a struggle between small business and big business that tore America apart. George and John Hartford took over their father's business and reshaped it again and again, turning it into a vertically integrated behemoth that paved the way for every big-box retailer to come. George demanded a rock-solid balance sheet; John was the marketer-entrepreneur who led A&P through seven decades of rapid changes. Together, they set the stage for the modern consumer economy by turning an archaic retail industry into a highly efficient system for distributing food at low cost.
Business & EconomicsCorporate & Business HistoryHistoryUnited States20th Century
RELEASED2012
PUBLISHERFarrar, Straus and Giroux
LENGTH384
LANGUAGEEN
American economist, historian, and journalist NOTE: LoC uses two different identities for the same author (saying "Email from Library of Congress (Paul Frank), September 23, 2020(per communication from Marc Levinson, use the access point Levinson, Marc, 1953- for works he wrote in his capacity as CRS [Congressional Research Service] staff member. For his other works, use the access point Levinson, Marc)"), but Wikidata and Open Library treat him as a single author. Levinson, Marc https://id.loc.gov/authorities/no2020111414 Levinson, Marc, 1953- https://id.loc.gov/authorities/n88063626
