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ear the outset of this meticulous survey of UPS’s history, business journalist Brewster sums up the message he wants businesspeople to take away: that UPS may be seen as “at once humdrum” and “wonderful to behold.” But he goes heavy on the humdrum in a book whose “clear-cut lessons” are too rudimentary for the corporate audience he’s courting. It’s only when the author focuses on little-known trivia and insider information—gleaned from what the jacket copy touts as his “unprecedented access” to the delivery giant—that his account approaches the wonderful. In recounting the evolution of the American behemoth from the Gold Rush days when 15-year-old Jim Casey transported everything from bail money to morphine, Brewster turns up some shiny nuggets: the trucks are brown so dirt won’t show; in Zambia, “UPS uses canoes to make deliveries”; in New York City, the company would prefer to offer the city government an annual payment instead of tracking thousands of parking tickets. Like UPS “lifer” Greg Niemann, whose Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS
(Jossey-Bass, Feb.), Brewster heaps praise on UPS, leaving skeptical readers to wonder what remains untold. But Brewster’s emphasis on UPS business strategies won’t be of much help to the management audience. It’s better suited to UPS’s beloved everyman Joe. (June)
