<P><B>The definitive account of how a small Ozarks company upended the world of business and what that change means</B></P><P>Wal-Mart, the world&#8217;s largest company, roared out of the rural South to change the way business is done. Deploying computer-age technology, Reagan-era politics, and Protestant evangelism, Sam Walton&#8217;s firm became a byword for cheap goods and low-paid workers, famed for the ruthless efficiency of its global network of stores and factories. But the revolution has gone further: Sam&#8217;s prot&#233;g&#233;s have created a new economic order which puts thousands of manufacturers, indeed whole regions, in thrall to a retail royalty. Like the Pennsylvania Railroad and General Motors in their heyday, Wal-Mart sets the commercial model for a huge swath of the global economy. </P><P>In this lively, probing investigation, historian Nelson Lichtenstein deepens and expands our knowledge of the merchandising giant. He shows that Wal-Mart&#8217;s rise was closely linked to the cultural and religious values of Bible Belt America as well as to the imperial politics, deregulatory economics, and laissez-faire globalization of Ronald Reagan and his heirs. He explains how the company&#8217;s success has transformed American politics, and he anticipates a day of reckoning, when challenges to the Wal-Mart way, at home and abroad, are likely to change the far-flung empire. </P><P>Insightful, original, and steeped in the culture of retail life, <I>The Retail Revolution</I> draws on first hand reporting from coastal China to rural Arkansas to give a fresh and necessary understanding of the phenomenon that has transformed international commerce. </P> <DIV><P><B>Nelson Lichtenstein</B> is one of the country&#8217;s leading experts on labor and politics and the editor of a much-cited collection of essays on Wal-Mart. A professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy,&nbsp;he is also the author of several highly regarded books on American history, including the award-winning <I>Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit</I>.</P></DIV> <DIV><DIV><P>Wal-Mart, the world&#8217;s largest company, roared out of the rural South to change the way business is done. Deploying computer-age technology, Reagan-era politics, and Protestant evangelism, Sam Walton&#8217;s firm became a byword for cheap goods and low-paid workers, famed for the ruthless efficiency of its global network of stores and factories. But the revolution has gone further: Sam&#8217;s prot&#233;g&#233;s have created a new economic order which puts thousands of manufacturers&#8212;indeed, whole regions&#8212;in thrall to a retail royalty. Like the Pennsylvania Railroad and General Motors in their heyday, Wal-Mart sets the commercial model for a huge swath of the global economy. <BR><BR>In this lively, probing investigation, historian Nelson Lichtenstein deepens and expands our knowledge of the merchandising giant. He shows that Wal-Mart&#8217;s rise was closely linked to the cultural and religious values of Bible Belt America as well as to the imperial politics, deregulatory economics, and laissez-faire globalization of Ronald Reagan and his heirs. He explains how the company&#8217;s success has transformed American politics, and he anticipates a day of reckoning, when challenges to the Wal-Mart way, at home and abroad, are likely to change the far-flung empire. <BR><BR>Insightful, original, and steeped in the culture of retail life, <I>The Retail Revolution</I> draws on firsthand reporting from coastal China to rural Arkansas to give a fresh and necessary understanding of the phenomenon that has reshaped international commerce. </P></DIV></DIV> <DIV><DIV>&#8220;Nelson Lichtenstein has written <I>the</I> book on Wal-Mart. You can read it as a sober indictment of the rogue company that happens also to be the world&#8217;s largest corporation. Or you can read it as a brilliantly reported case study in what&#8217;s gone wrong with the American&#8212;and the global&#8212;economy. Either way, you will read it, as I did, with complete fascination.&#8221;&#8212;<B>Barbara Ehrenreich, author of <I>Nickel and Dimed</I></B></DIV></DIV> <DIV><DIV><DIV>&#8220;Nelson Lichtenstein has written <I>the</I> book on Wal-Mart. You can read it as a sober indictment of the rogue company that happens also to be the world&#8217;s largest corporation. Or you can read it as a brilliantly reported case study in what&#8217;s gone wrong with the American&#8212;and the global&#8212;economy. Either way, you will read it, as I did, with complete fascination.&#8221;</DIV></DIV><DIV>&#8212;<B>Barbara Ehrenreich, author of <I>Nickel and Dimed</I></B></DIV><DIV>&nbsp;</DIV><DIV>&#8220;America&#8217;s wisest historian of business and labor has produced a masterpiece of reportage and analysis about the self-service country store that grew into the biggest merchandiser in the world. <I>The Retail Revolution</I> is far more than the best book ever written about Wal-Mart. It is a landmark work about the history of our time.&#8221;</DIV><DIV>&#8212;<B>Michael Kazin, author of <I>A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan</I></B></DIV><DIV>&nbsp;</DIV><DIV>&#8220;This lively yet incisive account of Wal-Mart, one of our era&#8217;s most important economic institutions, challenges the claim that the company has been a boon to the U.S. economy, providing a thoughtful and much-needed perspective on inequality and insecurity in modern America.&#8221;</DIV><DIV>&#8212;<B>Sanford M. Jacoby, author of <I>The Embedded Corporation</I></B></DIV><DIV>&nbsp;</DIV><DIV>&#8220;Lichtenstein&#8217;s calmly critical book sets the rise of Wal-Mart within its broader historical and cultural context, adding a valuable new perspective to the often fraught debate over the role of the world&#8217;s largest retailer.&#8221;</DIV><DIV><B>&#8212;Jonathan Birchall, U.S. consumer correspondent, <I>The Financial Times</I></B></DIV><DIV>&nbsp;</DIV><DIV>&#8220;Nelson Lichtenstein is the paramount authority on the world&#8217;s largest and most influential company, one that affects the lives of nearly all Americans and has transformed traditional business. In <I>The Retail Revolution</I>, original research and a profound understanding of American capitalism combine to produce a vivid account not only of how Wal-Mart has changed society, but how society in turn is now changing Wal-Mart.&#8221; </DIV><DIV><B>&#8212;Ron Galloway, director of <I>Why Wal-Mart Works</I></B></DIV><DIV>&nbsp;</DIV><DIV>&#8220;Readers wishing to grasp the brave new world of Wal-Mart in all its dimensions can&#8217;t do better than Nelson Lichtenstein&#8217;s engrossing and chilling account.&#8221;</DIV><DIV><B>&#8212;Robert Kuttner, co-editor of <I>The American Prospect</I></B></DIV><DIV><B><I>&nbsp;</DIV></I></B><DIV><DIV><DIV>&#8220;Wal-Mart employs two million people and operates 6,000 stores, &#8216;doing more business than Target, Home Depot, Sears Holdings, Safeway, and Kroger combined.&#8217; Historian and Wal-Mart authority Lichtenstein writes that its success &#8216;has transformed the nature of U.S. employment, sent U.S. manufacturing abroad, and redefined the very meaning of globalization.&#8217; The author brilliantly situates his narrative within the context of world history and the global economy, creating a lucid, evenhanded text that often reads like a novel. Relying on scholarly and journalistic sources, including his own reporting and interviews, Lichtenstein reveals how Wal-Mart&#8217;s domination of the retail world stems from its ruthless efficiency of distribution and consolidation of control at its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters. He also demonstrates the company&#8217;s shrewd use of technological innovation