Books — Consumed

1922 · Henry Ford (with Samuel Crowther)

Ford wrote this during the height of his influence, when the Model T had already changed how America moved and worked. The book isn't just corporate history—it's a manifesto about industrial organization and labor relations. Ford explains his thinking on the five-dollar workday, vertical integration, and why he believed mass production could solve social problems by making goods affordable.

What's striking is how opinionated Ford gets about everything from agriculture to finance to education. He believed in systematic thinking applied to all areas of life, not just car manufacturing. The production insights remain relevant: his obsession with eliminating waste, reducing unnecessary motion, and designing for manufacturability anticipated lean manufacturing by decades.

The book shows Ford as both visionary and rigid. His conviction that efficiency and standardization could improve society led to genuine innovations in worker compensation and production design. But the same absolutism that drove his success also limited his thinking—he famously resisted model changes and held views that aged poorly. Still, as a primary source on early 20th century industrial capitalism and the birth of modern manufacturing, it's essential reading.