Broken Alliances

Inside the Rise and Fall of a Global Automotive Empire

By: Carlos Ghosn, Philippe Riés

Narrated by: Steve Edwards

Length: 12 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

On December 30, 2019, Carlos Ghosn became the most famous fugitive on the planet when the former chairman of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance fled to Lebanon from house arrest in Japan.

This political-judicial thriller describes in detail for the first time how Ghosn was arrested on arrival at Haneda Airport in Tokyo a year earlier and incarcerated for 130 days.

Long revered in Japan for saving Nissan from bankruptcy in 1999 and helping Renault achieve the best results in its history, Ghosn explains being transformed overnight into a pariah, torn from the world and his family as the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by the Nissan Old Guard and the Tokyo Public Prosecutors' Office.

Ghosn also recounts how he built the Franco-Japanese Alliance into a global motor giant, expanding operations in markets from the United States, China and Russia to Brazil, Morocco and Thailand, becoming the world's top automaker by volume in 2017. But his arrest on November 9, 2018 plunges the alliance into crisis as company share prices collapse at the same time as the global auto industry faces an unprecedented technological revolution.

Broken Alliances involves the highest levels of political power in Japan and France and describes a Japanese judicial system closer to that of the Soviet Union under Stalin than an advanced democracy. It also addresses the reasons behind Nissan's internal coup and questions about the chairman's remuneration, his management methods, and his vision for the future of the auto industry - to understand what has happened and what could still happen tomorrow.

©2021 Tanooki Press (P)2022 Tanooki Press

One man's account, but not the whole story.

If you want to know what Carlos Ghosn thinks of his situation and treatment by Nissan... and if you want to learn about how laws and prisons work in Japan (of which neither would be acceptable in the West) then get this book. The account of Mr. Gohsn is well written, and the historical and industry context is well researched and very interesting.

The downside is that you hear lots of comments about the other side without their defense... and for sure Mr. Ghosn did things that would have had him (or those in charge of governance at the company) fired. You don't make arrangements with third parties you are doing business with at the company for your own benefit for example... it's inexcusable.

Meanwhile, the core of the matter here is that a criminal accusation is used when in reality, the company should have resolved these issues internally. Other car executives are paid allot? Good for them, that is no reason to condone behavior or justify your position for example.

For sure, Ghosn will go down in history with a positive record, with more wins than losses. But to read this, Ghosn does no wrong and almost everybody else makes bad decisions except for him in this book. Meanwhile, that is not the real situation.

There is no "we" in the book either... it's I,I,I. The Japanese are not perfect, and you see lots of that in this book... but you see know "respect for people" which is a hallmark of great Japanese companies like Toyota.

Another small point - the narrator butchers names all throught the book, which makes it very frustrating to read for those actually engaged in the Automotive business. Vauxhall is pronounced "Vox-Haul" in reality, but "vo-haul" in the audiobook. Painful.

I delayed buying this book, as I knew it would be predictable. I am not sorry I read it... I learned a lot. But I can see why this is not a popular book - it's too one sided, and even with no dissenting opinions, they do not win the case - even if this were to be the only book you read about the scandal.