Maxwell Motor and the Making of the Chrysler Corporation by Anthony J. Yanik (review)

Book Reviews137 commercially successful but edgy nineties bands like Nirvana acknowledged the singer's profound influence. Trynka, amusic journalist and formerMojo magazine editor, places Osterberg in rock history rather than placing rock (and Osterberg) into a historical narrative. Trynka's gift for communicating the sound and feel of Pop's music is evident in his description of "Repo Man," a song commissioned for the 1984 film by the same name: "With its claustrophobic semitonal riffs, vaguely reminiscent of the Batman theme; Jones's roaring guitars; and galloping muscular bass and drums from Harrison and Burke, 'Repo Man' was undeniably the best rock song Iggy had recorded since theNew Values days" (p. 277). Historians looking for social or cultural explanations of why 1960s Detroit produced hard-driving bands like theMC5 and the Stooges or why alternative rock pervaded the 1990s will be disappointed. Conversely, readers looking for an exciting, well-crafted, and balanced biography will be delighted. Montgomery Wolf University of Georgia Anthony J.Yanik. Maxwell Motor and the Making oftheChryslerCorporation. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009. Pp. 189. Appendix. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Cloth, $34.95. The publication of Anthony J. Yanik's Maxwell Motor and the Making of theChrysler Corporation comes at an auspicious time. Just as the fate of the big three, Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors, has fallen into great uncertainty, Yanik reminds us thatDetroit's risewas not inexorable. A cohort of entrepreneurs, engineers, and salesmen laid the groundwork for the early automotive industry before corporate consolidation and technological convergence came to dominate it in the 1920s. Without the contributions of these early auto men, icons likeWalter P. Chrysler might never have become fixtures of the corporate landscape. Yanik invites us into the competitive and risk-filledworld of the nascent automotive industry through the story of Maxwell Motor, the company that would become the Chrysler Corporation. He resurrects the rich contributions of the men behind Maxwell, including the namesake engineer Jonathan Maxwell, the "irrepressible" entrepreneur Benjamin Briscoe, and the production genius Walter Flanders (p. 90). 138 MichiganHistoricalReview What is most dehghtful about this book is Yanik's skillful unpacking of the creative destruction of the early automotive enterprise and his passion for early automotive engineering; contingency marked every step. Cutthroat competition and backroom deals ruled the day. Companies and partnerships passed rapidly in and out of existence as an array ofmen <