What do you think?
Rate this book
The Highwaymen
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 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.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Ken Auletta
24 books96 followersKen Auletta has written Annals of Communications columns and profiles for The New Yorker magazine since 1992. He is the author of eleven books, including five national bestsellers: Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; Greed And Glory On Wall Street: The Fall of The House of Lehman; The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Super Highway; World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies; and Googled, The End of the World As We Know It, which was published in November of 2009.
Auletta has won numerous journalism honors. He has been chosen a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library, and one of the 20th Century's top 100 business journalists by a distinguished national panel of peers.
For two decades Auletta has been a national judge of the Livingston Awards for journalists under thirty-five. He has been a Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival. He was a member of the Columbia Journalism School Task Force assembled by incoming college President Lee Bollinger to help reshape the curriculum. He has served as a Pulitzer Prize juror and a Trustee of the Nightingale-Bamford School. He was twice a Trustee of PEN, the international writers organization. He is a member of the New York Public Library's Emergency Committee for the Research Libraries, of the Author's Guild, PEN, and of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Auletta grew up on Coney Island in Brooklyn, where he attended public schools. He graduated with a B.S. from the State University College at Oswego, N.Y., and received an M.A. in political science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
Auletta has won numerous journalism honors. He has been chosen a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library, and one of the 20th Century's top 100 business journalists by a distinguished national panel of peers.
For two decades Auletta has been a national judge of the Livingston Awards for journalists under thirty-five. He has been a Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival. He was a member of the Columbia Journalism School Task Force assembled by incoming college President Lee Bollinger to help reshape the curriculum. He has served as a Pulitzer Prize juror and a Trustee of the Nightingale-Bamford School. He was twice a Trustee of PEN, the international writers organization. He is a member of the New York Public Library's Emergency Committee for the Research Libraries, of the Author's Guild, PEN, and of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Auletta grew up on Coney Island in Brooklyn, where he attended public schools. He graduated with a B.S. from the State University College at Oswego, N.Y., and received an M.A. in political science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 15, 2015
Its not about highways or the road industry :)
A very interesting compilation of stories published in the New Yorker - about the media, cable, and content industry and the consolidation boom in the 1990s.
Key takeaways: technological change is difficult to handle.
Outsized egos are difficult to control.
The news is always willing to crown someone a hero, and mr. market will take away that title in a few years time.
People with cash dont know what to do with it
I didnt know that Microsoft had its own version of moonshots ala Google
Really long book - and a few of the chapters should be skipped. The first few and the last couple are the best.
A very interesting compilation of stories published in the New Yorker - about the media, cable, and content industry and the consolidation boom in the 1990s.
Key takeaways: technological change is difficult to handle.
Outsized egos are difficult to control.
The news is always willing to crown someone a hero, and mr. market will take away that title in a few years time.
People with cash dont know what to do with it
I didnt know that Microsoft had its own version of moonshots ala Google
Really long book - and a few of the chapters should be skipped. The first few and the last couple are the best.
August 6, 2007
beyond media moguls "who's who" the writer was a fly on the wall - we get to know everything! wish he did the same with more - these stories are quite dated...
January 5, 2019
Funny to read this now, or just look at the cover. This was just as the dot.coms were taking off and the established view was these media companies were in control.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews