Deaver Brown

My father, E. K. Brown, was a noted academic having gotten a State Doctorate in English at the Sorbonne, first in his class at the University of Toronto, and Chairman of the English Departments at Cornell and Manitoba at 29. He moved to the University of Chicago due to the energy of Robert Hutchins. With that in mind, but not the full intellect, I studied history at Harvard College with George Frederickson, later Chairman at Northwestern and Stanford, and wrote my undergraduate this on Civilizing the Machine: 1865 to 1900 under Neil Harris, later Chairman at Chicago. Perhaps their greatest achievement was preparing me for the General Exam in which I received a Distinction, which, in turn energized me to write and study history for the rest of my life. See my eBooks and audio books in the Great Thoughts series about such topics as The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Gettysburg Address, with all the original documents for your review and listening pleasure. One of the great qualities of eBooks is it costs no more to include documents and footnotes. You will see that I have translated the old documents such as Magna Carta from Latin into modern English; the more arcane words appear in the footnotes, rather than the text, to make for smoother reading. Both said that little was written about business by business people that was anything but fairly cliched. Without being unduly critical of the hero CEOs who have written books, I have found this generally to be true. After Harvard College, having received a Magna, I decided to go to Harvard Business School to learn the trade of business. Subsequently HBS has tried to move upscale with research and theory, but left behind the trade of business so important to those of us who practiced it as executives and entrepreneurs, my profession. This is more of a British than American tradition. So much wonderful history and ideas are brought forth by Oxford and Cambridge graduates without PHDs. The writing is usually more vigorous and accessible since the writer does not have to worry as much about the opinions of the academy and competitive peers. With that in mind, I wrote my first book, The Entrepreneurs Guide, after my first entrepreneurial venture was sold to Rubbermaid, now Newell. The emphasis was on the boiler room where things happen: sales, operations, delivery, and payment, attempting to de-emphasize what I believed was the psuedo-academic interest in theory, professional, and related topics. As Peter Drucker famously said, "Deals are sexy; it is the work that counts." This had led to 20 to 30 ebooks on business that business academics can't write because they would be considered too prosaic and not academic enough, and practioners just can't do very well. So I wrote Sell Anything, Negotiate Anything, Finance Your Business, Board of Directors, and many others. I also recorded many as audio books, including a Harvard Business Review series of wonderful articles from writers such as Peter Drucker, Clayton Christensen, Michael Porter, and Ted Levitt. Several key takeaways: as a solid minor league entrepreneur, helping launch Umbroller and American Power Conversion, among others, I have the normal person's insight into the field, much as the normal players such as Bill Belichick, Pepper Johnson, or Phil Jackson do in sports. It is hard for the great players, such as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, anymore than a Joe Montana, Ted Williams, Jim Brown, or John Elway, to coach effectively. History has been of particular interest because I have been part of the world, with an emphasis on the commercial side. So much in history has related to economics and taxes in particular, such as the American Revolution driven by those issues, that I have been able to bring what I believe a less biased point of view to the examination of history. My gold standard is that of Peter Drucker: can you write history and educational works without the reader knowing what your political point of view is. If you can do that, I believe you have succeeded--and that is what I have tried to do. Write history and about history without injecting my personal politics. Only you can tell whether I have succeeded in my mission, as Peter Drucker did so brilliantly. Amazon has brought down the cost of books enormously, made them more accessible, and tied in audiobooks with their eBooks. A fabulous job. Apple has down the same. You can see all of my eBooks at www.discountaudiobooks.com with hotlinks to each book on Amazon. Do note that Amazon has provided the ability to download their books to PC and MAC with utilities they have generously let us put on our site to guide you to the appropriate place on Amazon. Support eBooks; we price all of ours at $4.99 or less. Our retailers want higher prices, by and large, but Amazon and Apple have focused on the sweet spot of $5. And it is a win/win for authors and readers. We get much higher percentage royalties from Amazon which makes up for the lower retails. So enjoy. Send all feedback to Deaver@discountaudiobooks.com. I want to hear; it makes the books and audiobooks better for everyone! Thank you. PS. In the photo, I am the shorter guy in the blue shirt, with a group of my friends from HBS at Anthony's Pier 4, a legendary restaurant in Boston.