The Highwaymen - Softcover

Auletta, Ken

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156005735 ISBN 13: 9780156005739

Publisher: Harvest Books/Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1998

Synopsis

A titanic struggle is taking place - not just among corporate titans, but among entire industries across the globe. At stake is control of the world's fastest-growing industry: communications. The contestants are the huge Hollywood studios, the television networks, and telephone, publishing, and computer companies. The prize is not only vast wealth, but a virtual lock on the dissemination of information worldwide. The Highwaymen is a riveting and compelling look behind the scenes at the vanities and visions of such chief players as Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner, Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, and Microsoft. An astounding tale of greed, enterprise, and corporate achievement, The Highwaymen is an account of the explosive landscape of telecommunications, and as such provides an indispensable guide to today's world.

About this title

Review

Few industries can grab the world's attention these days--and hold the promise of totally reshaping its future--like communications. Bestselling author Ken Auletta profiles many of the field's leading lights in great depth in The New Yorker, and 17 of his most compelling essays since 1992 have been collected in a book that offers close-up details as well as long-range perspectives on movers and shakers such as Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and Ted Turner. Available in paperback, The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Superhighway has been extensively revised and expanded since its original publication. --Howard Rothman

From the Publisher

PRAISE FOR Three Blind Mice:

"Sweeping in its scope and definitive in its detail, Three Blind Mice will tower over all other accounts as the new bible of the broadcasting business."
-- Chicago Sun Times

"The book's fascination and fun lie in the detail -- Mr. Auletta's extraordinary access to the principle players, his eye for color, ear for anecdote and reporter's instinct for conflict."
-- The Wall Street Journal

"A tour-de-force of reporting"
-- Business Week

"Three Blind Mice may be the most thorough probe ever into how the TV industry works."
-- Newsweek

"Ken Auletta tells it all about the television networks. Behind the scenes, on the record, as never before."
-- Ben Bradlee, The Washington Post

Early Reviews for The Highwaymen:

"In his new book, Auletta collects 16 of his New Yorker articles published since 1993, adding afterwards and updates where necessary. (Most of the piece on William Bennett's battle with Time Warner over rap music, for example, did not appear in the original version.) The theme binding the pieces is the new booms in the electronic communications business, and in particular the figures -- usually colorful -- who have dominated, however fleetingly, its rapid growth.

Included are Ted Turner of CNN, John Malone of TCI, Rupert Murdoch (who came to regret taping "fifteen or so hours" of interviews with Auletta and giving him almost complete access for a week -- more exposure, Auletta notes, than Murdoch had ever allowed before), Herbert Allen, master arranger of mega-mergers, and Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg together (briefly) at Disney. There's also a corporate history of Viacom, a look at the move into show business by the new generation at Seagram's, and a discussion of the "synergistic" superhighway's distrust -- and fear -- of traditional journalism, the craft Auletta practices so skillfully. For those who haven't kept abreast of what's been happening in the big-bucks communications world, here's an ideal way to catch up."
-- Publisher's Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvest Books/Harcourt, Brace and Company
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0156005735
• ISBN 13: 9780156005739
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384