The Real Ones: Four Generations of the First Family of Coca-cola

The great-great-granddaughter of the founder of the Coca-Cola Company provides an inside look into her family and one of the most successful, idiosyncratic companies in American business.

Judicious editing would have improved this often riveting but at times tedious, rambling family history. The saga begins with Georgian Asa G. Candler, who in 1888 paid a fellow druggist $2033 for the rights to a headache remedy called Coca-Cola and, through an innovative national marketing campaign, enriched himself, the Methodist Church, Emory University, his native Atlanta, myriad social causes and his 400-plus descendants through company profits which amounted to $1618 million net in 1991. With freelance writer Roberts, Graham, herself a Candler descendant, researched public records, private letters and unpublished documents for this business saga and family cavalcade of triumphs and sorrows, the latter brought on by sibling rivalry, infidelity, child mortality, alcoholism and accidental deaths. A highlight here is a hilarious inside look at the company's famously disastrous 1985 decision to "improve" the still-secret Coke formula to make the drink taste more like arch-rival Pepsi.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The title leads one to believe that this book is about the business of Coca-Cola and the people who owned it. However, in the preface, Graham, who is the great-great grandaughter of Coca-Cola founder Asa Cander, states that she was inspired to write the book after searching for photographs to complete a family scrapbook. The focus is on the personal history of the Candlers, with only three chapters devoted to the company. Business historians will be disappointed to find that Graham and her coauthor write little about the Candlers' management practices. The narrative is gossipy, and the text is verbose. Nonetheless, the book might appeal to Georgia history buffs. Recommended only for Southeastern collections.
- Rebecca A. Smith, Harvard Business Sch. Lib.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.