Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

He lives in a simple house in a small Southern town. He has been married to the same woman for almost five decades, drives a Chevy, dresses in store-bought clothes, and puts in long hours at his job. He also has made for himself and his family over nine billion dollars, more than any other man in America. This extraordinary person is Sam Walton, and this fascinating, superbly researched book pierces his carefully cultivated cloak of ordinariness to show what makes him tick and what has made him succeed beyond the wildest dreams of wealth. It is a story, and a quest, that began in the dust bowl of Oklahoma in the Depression, where a small boy saw firsthand the razor-thin lines between survival and disaster. It was a lesson that stood him in good stead when took an eighty-five-dollar-a-month job with J.C. Penney and learned the principle of putting customer satisfaction above profits. In 1945, he bought a five-and-dime store in Newport, Arkansas, and began to put his ideas of how to make money to the test. The first Wal-Mart was born. And while the rest is history, the story of Sam Walton is also the story of those ideas and how they worked through good times and bad to create one of the greatest triumphs in the annals of American retailing. And what is most heartening of all about Sam Walton's spectacular success in this era notorious for greed, fraud, and financial shenanigans are his old-fashioned principles of doing business: Horatio Alger virtues of honesty and hard work. This rag-to-riches tale also reveals what others-both rivals and employees, boosters and critics-think of the wealthiest man in America and his methods. And Sam Walton himself tells how he has coped not only with success but with setback, working sixteen hour days to pursue his passion for business perfection, while remaining true to himself and devoted to his family. For anyone looking for irresistible reading-and a truly remarkable human being-meet Sam Walton, the plain folks genius who's utterly unique.--Page 2 and 3 of cover.

BSLW RECAT 2023