This was definitely an interesting book. It was partly a history of the Wal-Mart company, partly a history of Sam Walton and family, and partly an analysis (and critique) of Wal-Mart's business practices. Bianco does a good job of covering as many aspects of the company as he can, but not in depth. This is both an advantage in that it keeps the text flowing and a disadvantage in that I felt he cut some subjects short that I wanted to read more about.
I actually thought that this was going to be a more anti Wal-Mart book than it turned out to be (I mean, look at the title). However, I thought that all in all it mostly just presented a very factual, balanced account of Wal-Mart. For example, when he discussed the economic cost/benefit analysis of having a Wal-Mart in the community, he quotes from three different studies of the phenomenon (one of which, he tells us later, was conducted by a pro free-market economist).
Unless you've read about Wal-Mart extensively before, I would say that this makes for a very good introduction, especially if you're looking for a book that discusses it in terms of pros vs. cons. Some of the subjects discussed are Wal-Marts low wages, anti-unionism, depressing prices (and the profits of manufacturers), market saturation, "manifest destiny", and their corporate culture.
(Edit: The following part of this review was originally written at the same time as the former half, but due to Blogspot error was lost. I had to rewrite it, so that's why it wasn't complete until now.)
Whether you're pro Wal-Mart or not, this book does a good job of demonstrating exactly how much influence Wal-Mart has over our economy. I forget exactly, but there's a statistic that Wal-Mart is something like 5% of the economy by itself. That's monstrous (in the sense of hugeness and power). To think that 1 of every 20 dollars is spent at Wal-Mart! That's why their business practices and employee wages matter so much. They didn't start the trade deficit with China, but they certainly grew it.
Even so, the book goes into great detail about how that's not Sam Walton's vision of Wal-Mart. Remember the "Made in America" campaign? That was Walton. Basically, right after his death they tore down all those banners and signs and increased their trade with China.
The tendency is to see Wal-Mart as a monolithic behemoth that cannot be fought and beaten, but the truth is that it's defeating itself. The business model it pursues so fiercely is unsustainable at the level to which it has grown itself. Wal-Mart has been performing less than stellarly these past few years. Unfortunately, the book doesn't go further into that topic, which, as I pointed out earlier, is one of the main flaws.
In all, it's generally a good read because the topic is so interesting, but the language is just very plain and nothing special. Non-fiction can be written using more poetic language than that, but Bianco doesn't write that way. I suppose he figures the attractiveness of the information itself is what keeps you reading, and there's no need to expend effort on the actual language of the book (but Michael Pollan proves that the writing can push a book's quality up a level). It was also too short (because he didn't explore certain themes deeply enough), but if it had been much longer, the writing probably would have made it boring. But definitely worth reading overall. Not only because of what it tells you about Wal-Mart, but about how America has changed in the last 40 years. That's not a topic he explicitly covers, but is definitely implicit in the subject matter. So read it!
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