Axelrod, Alan 1952–

(Alan David Axelrod, Jack Griffin)

PERSONAL: Born August 25, 1952, in New York, NY; son of Samuel George (a buyer) and Helen Josephine Axelrod. Education: Northeastern Illinois University, B.A., 1972; University of Iowa, M.A., 1973, Ph.D., 1979.

ADDRESSES: Home—Atlanta, GA. Office—Ian Samuel Group, Inc., 655 Elmwood Dr. N.E., Atlanta, GA 30303. Agent—Hornfischer Literary Management, L.P., P.O. Box 50544, Austin, TX 78763.

CAREER: State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, assistant editor, 1977–79; Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL, lecturer in English, 1979–80; Furman University, Greenville, SC, assistant professor of English, 1980–82; Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE, assistant editor, beginning 1982; currently freelance writer. Consultant to cultural institutions and museums; creative consultant to television documentary series The Wild West, A & E, and Civil War Journal, Discovery Channel.

MEMBER: American Studies Fellows, Tennessee Squires.

WRITINGS:

Records of a Chance Meeting (poetry), Ad Hoc Press, 1977.

Charles Brockden Brown: An American Tale, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1983.

(Editor) Colonial Revival in America, Norton (New York, NY), 1984.

Art of the Golden West, Abbeville Press (New York, NY), 1990.

(Author of commentary) Songs of the Wild West, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1991.

The War between the Spies: A History of Espionage during the American Civil War, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 1992.

(With Charles L. Phillips) What Every American Should Know about American History: 200 Events that Shaped the Nation, B. Adams (Holbrook, MA), 1992, 2nd edition, Adams Media (Avon, MA), 2004.

Chronicle of the Indian Wars: From Colonial Times to Wounded Knee, Prentice Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1993.

(With Charles L. Phillips) My Brother's Face: Portraits of the Civil War in Photographs, Diaries, and Letters, Chronicle Books (San Francisco, CA), 1993.

The Environmentalists: A Biographical Dictionary from the 17th Century to the Present, Facts on File (New York, NY), 1993.

Dictators and Tyrants: Absolute Rulers and Would-Be Rulers in World History, Facts on File (New York, NY), 1995.

(With Charles L. Phillips) What Everyone Should Know about the 20th Century: 200 Events that Shaped the World, B. Adams (Holbrook, MA), 1995.

(With Charles L. Phillips and Kurt Kemper) Cops, Crooks, and Criminologists: An International Biographical Dictionary of Law Enforcement, Facts on File (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor, with Charles L. Phillips) Encyclopedia of the American West, four volumes, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1996.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to American History, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 1996, 4th edition, 2006.

(With The Players) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Mixing Drinks, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 1997, 2nd edition, 2003.

The International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders, Facts on File (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Jim Holtje) 201 Ways to Deal with Difficult People, McGraw (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Jim Holtje) 201 Ways to Manage Your Time Better, McGraw (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Jim Holtje) 201 Ways to Say No Gracefully and Effectively, McGraw (New York, NY), 1997.

(With The Players) The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Bartending, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 1998, 2nd edition, 2003.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to 20th-Century History, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 1998.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Civil War, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 1998, 2nd edition, 2003.

Miss Nomer's Guide to Painfully Incorrect English: Because It's about Time You Stopped Sounding like an Imbecile, Berkley Books (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Charles L. Phillips) The Macmillan Dictionary of Military Biography: The Warriors and Their Wars, 3500 B.C.–Present, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Christopher De Pree) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Astronomy, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 1998, 3rd edition, 2004.

Patton on Leadership: Strategic Lessons for Corporate Warfare, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1999.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jazz, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 1999.

Ace Your Midterms & Finals: Fundamentals of Mathematics, McGraw (New York, NY), 1999.

Ace Your Midterms & Finals: Introduction to Physics, McGraw (New York, NY), 1999.

Ace Your Midterms & Finals: Introduction to Psychology, McGraw (New York, NY), 1999.

Ace Your Midterms & Finals: U.S. History, McGraw (New York, NY), 1999.

Ace Your Midterms & Finals: Principles of Economics, McGraw (New York, NY), 1999.

(Editor) The Quotable Historian: Words of Wisdom from Winston Churchill, Barbara Tuchman, Edward Gibbon, Julius Caesar, David McCullough, and More, McGraw (New York, NY), 2000.

American Treaties and Alliances, CQ Press (Washington, DC), 2000.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to the American Revolution, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 2000.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to World War I, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 2000.

Elizabeth I, CEO: Strategic Lessons from the Leader Who Built an Empire, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 2000.

(With Harry Oster and Walton Rawls) The Penguin Dictionary of American Folklore, Penguin (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Charles L. Phillips) Encyclopedia of Historical Treaties and Alliances, Volume 1: From Ancient Times to World War I, Volume 2: From the 1920s to the Present, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2001, 2nd edition, 2005.

The Life and Work of Benito Mussolini, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 2001.

The Life and Work of Thomas Jefferson, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 2001.

America's Wars, J. Wiley (New York, NY), 2002.

Everything I Know about Business I Learned from Monopoly: Successful Executives Reveal Strategic Lessons from the World's Greatest Board Game, Running Press (Philadelphia, PA), 2002.

Minority Rights in America, CQ Press (Washington, DC), 2002.

Profiles in Leadership: The Distinctive Lives of the Men and Women Who Shaped the World, Prentice Hall (Paramus, NJ), 2002.

(With Tom Ritchey) I'm Stuck, You're Stuck: Break through to Better Work Relationships and Results by Discovering Your DiSC Behavioral Style, Berett-Loehler Publishers (San Francisco, CA), 2002.

Science A.S.A.P.: As Soon as Possible, as Simple as Possible, Prentice Hall (New York, NY), 2003.

(With Christopher Gordon De Pree) Recent Advances and Issues in Astronomy, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2003.

(With Peter B. Kyne) The Go-Getter: A Story that Tells You How to Be One, revised edition, Times Books (New York, NY), 2003.

(Editor, with Christopher Gordon De Pree) Van Nostrand's Concise Encyclopedia of Science, 9th edition, foreword by Glenn D. Considine, Wiley (Hoboken, NJ), 2003.

(With Guy Antinozzi) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Criminal Investigation, Alpha Books (Indianapolis, IN), 2003.

American History A.S.A.P.: As Soon as Possible, as Simple as Possible, Prentice Hall (New York, NY), 2003.

Nothing to Fear: Lessons in Leadership from FDR, President of the Greatest Generation, Prentice Hall (Paramus, NJ), 2003, published as Nothing to Fear: Lessons in Leadership from FDR, Portfolio (New York, NY), 2003.

When the Buck Stops with You: Harry S. Truman on Leadership, Portfolio (New York, NY), 2004.

Encyclopedia of the American Armed Forces, Volume 1: U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, Volume 2: U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2005.

Lincoln's Last Night: Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, and the Last 36 Hours before the Assassination, Chamberlain Bros. (New York, NY), 2005.

(With Charles Phillips) Encyclopedia of Wars, three volumes, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2005.

Political History of America's Wars, CQ Press (Washington, DC), 2006.

1001 Events that Made America: A Patriot's Handbook, National Geographic (Washington, DC), 2006.

Eisenhower on Leadership: Ike's Enduring Lessons in Total Victory Management, Jossey-Bass (San Francisco, CA), 2006.

Encyclopedia of the U.S. Air Force, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2006.

Encyclopedia of the U.S. Army, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2006.

Encyclopedia of the U.S. Marines, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2006.

Encyclopedia of the U.S. Navy, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2006.

Patton: A Biography, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2006.

Encyclopedia of World War II, consulting editor, Jack A. Kingston, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2007.

Getting Your Way Every Day: Mastering the Lost Art of Pure Persuasion, AMACOM (Washington, DC), 2007.

1001 People Who Made America, National Geographic (Washington, DC), 2007.

Miracle at Belleau Wood: The Birth of the Modern U.S. Marine Corps, Lyons Press (Guilford, CT), 2007.

Blooding at Great Meadows: Young George Washington and the Battle that Shaped the Man, Running Press (Philadelphia, PA), 2007.

Also author, under pseudonym Jack Griffin, of How to Say It at Work, Prentice-Hall (New York, NY). Contributor to periodicals, including Down Beat, South Carolina Review, American Studies, Palimpsest, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, USA Today, Business Week, Fortune, Men's Health, and Winterthur Portfolio.

ADAPTATIONS: Some of Axelrod's books have been adapted to audio cassette, including Paton on Leadership, S. & S. Audio, 1999; Elizabeth I, CEO, Recorded Books, 2001; and The Go-Getter, Audio Renaissance, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Alan Axelrod is a prolific author of reference books and how-to guides for business leadership, as well as a plethora of informational volumes on everything from physics to folklore and history. His contributions to the "Complete Idiot's Guide" series include books on the Civil War, astronomy, jazz, and mixing cocktails, while his more serious and detailed works explore the American West, military history, and secret societies. Few writers of any stripe could keep pace with Axelrod, who has been turning out as many as three or four books per year since the early 1990s.

Two of Axelrod's better-known titles are Patton on Leadership: Strategic Lessons for Corporate Warfare and Elizabeth I, CEO: Strategic Lessons from the Leader Who Built an Empire. Both of these books examine the lives and philosophies of two outstanding leaders who managed—sometimes with audacity—to achieve dominance over formidable enemies. A reviewer for Canadian Manager felt that Patton on Leadership "reveals the master at work and shows how to apply his principles in the business world." A Publishers Weekly reviewer discussing Elizabeth I, CEO likewise suggested that history buffs "will enjoy the brief portraits of Queen Elizabeth's governing style in various circumstances." As Axelrod explained to a Fortune interviewer, Elizabeth recognized the importance of developing a strong image, and made herself into a "cultural icon that would satisfy a need" among her English subjects. This is a strategy that present-day business leaders could adopt to their own advantage. "They do need to create an image that satisfies the culture of their organization," Axelrod commented.

Axelrod has written other books involving leadership principles as illustrated by historical figures, as well, while in other works he takes an even more unique approach. For example, Eisenhower on Leadership: Ike's Enduring Lessons in Total Victory Management uses excerpts from the president's writings to discuss good management concepts, offering 232 "lessons [that] ring true" using "lively, cheerful prose," according to a Publishers Weekly critic. With Everything I Know about Business I Learned from Monopoly: Successful Executives Reveal Strategic Lessons from the World's Greatest Board Game Axelrod takes the novel approach of using a popular game to show how it is the risk takers who win not only the game, but also in business. Readers "will undoubtedly chuckle over Axelrod's irreverent entrepreneur's guide," reported a Publishers Weekly writer. Steven J. Mayover, reviewing the work for Library Journal, called it a "readable and thought-provoking book." The Go-Getter: The Classic Story that Tells You How to Be One is a collaborative effort with Peter B. Kyne. Kyne, a veteran who lost two of his limbs, tells the inspiring, true story of how his personal drive made him a success in business despite his physical challenges.

In addition to his business leadership-related books, Axelrod is well known for his many reference works on topics such as American history, the military, and science. A number of his books are collaborative efforts with Charles L. Phillips, including the four-volume Encyclopedia of the American West, as well as The Macmillan Dictionary of Military Biography: The Warriors and Their Wars, 3500 B.C.–Present. These works are reference books containing entries on people, events, cultural trends, and places pertinent to the topics. A contributor to Booklist commended the Encyclopedia of the American West for its "concise, well-written information about persons, places, or things."

The author and editor was praised more recently for his Chronicle of the Indian Wars: From Colonial Times to Wounded Knee. American Indian Quarterly reviewer Bruce J. Dinges appreciated the author's "modesty" in acknowledging his disadvantage at addressing this topic from a white person's perspective. Noting that the first part of the book, which discusses the Spanish oppression of Native Americans, is "superficial and distorted," Dinges nevertheless went on to say that "Axelrod is particularly effective in tracing the shifting alliances of Northeastern tribes during the French and Indian wars and the American Revolution. But he also pays proper attention to lesser-known conflicts." Continuing to praise this "evenhanded account," the critic concluded, "It may … be more productive to commend Axelrod for what he has achieved, rather than catalogue his shortcomings."

Among Axelrod's other reference works are such titles as The Penguin Dictionary of American Folklore, Van Nostrand's Concise Encyclopedia of Science, Encyclopedia of Wars, Encyclopedia of Historical Treaties and Alliances, and Encyclopedia of the American Armed Forces. These titles aim to give broad, general introductions to their various subjects, and critics have recognized them as solid reference sources for younger students and lay readers. For instance, a Booklist contributor remarked on Encyclopedia of Historical Treaties and Alliances: "Anyone who wants to put these documents in perspective will find this set a wonderful resource." In a review of Encyclopedia of the American Armed Forces, Booklist contributor Kaye Talley attested: "It would be a good reference source for high-school, academic, and public libraries as well as for personal collections."

Axelrod once told CA: "My critical writing is about the New World as a personal and cultural icon and totem: a metaphor. While my scholarly interest is principally in early American literature, the metaphoric function of America first became clear to me (as doubtless it has to any number of undergraduates) in reading The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald's novel does not merely treat the so-called American dream, but rather reveals the New World as a place that demands the production of dreams—extorts them, really—as if the whole solid continent were only the projected imaginings of the men and women who have lived and labored on it. Unfortunately, as Nick Carraway discovers and Jay Gatsby himself fails to discover, metaphor must exist in a world of substance; the pure ether of dreams is fed by the poor earth of greed, lust, and stupidity, suffering the decay time works on all finally substantial things.

"I study the ways in which American writers use the New World as the stuff of metaphor and how these writers manage—or fail to manage—reconciliation between dream and substance. Of course, dreams and the failure of dreams are not peculiar to America. But because the New World existed in the European imagination long before it was explored physically and because its imaginative being has persisted long after its physical exploration, mythic structures evolved about America that have united it permanently and peculiarly to the individual and collective imagination. What is more, the drama of the conflict between imagined metaphor and actual substance, while hardly unknown in the Old World, is especially intense in America because the New World is as much a place of ineluctable fact as it is the territory of illusion. Its very existence compelled Europeans to revise religion and cosmogony. America was a wilderness that forced upon inhabitants and intruders alike a necessary regard for empirical exigencies. Even after the wilderness was 'settled,' the civilization it bore governed itself by the empirical principles of such philosophers as John Locke, while the national philosophy evolved into 'pragmatism' and the national literature worked itself into 'realism.' Nevertheless, the practical founders of our government were simultaneously Platonists, the pragmatic philosophers Transcendentalists, and the realist writers intensely romantic.

"So American literature, as I study it, is frontier literature—not just the geographical frontier that appears in the works of James Fenimore Cooper or Francis Parkman or even Walt Whitman, but the figurative frontier that informs virtually all of our important literary works. In creating a metaphor from the physical, intellectual, and emotional materials of the New World, our most characteristic writers established their camps on a frontier far more enduring than any geographical demarcation. The point at which dream confronts substance, the American metaphor is a frontier that holds in dramatic dialectic the anxious, hopeful self and the threatening, promising world beyond it.

"This is what excites me about American literature."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Heritage, June-July, 2004, "Leadership Lessons from Warren Harding … and Other Unlikely Presidential Sources," review of Nothing to Fear: Lessons in Leadership from FDR, p. 16.

American Indian Quarterly, summer, 1994, Bruce J. Dinges, review of Chronicle of the Indian Wars: From Colonial Times to Wounded Knee, p. 413.

Astronomy, August, 2002, Andrew S. Fazekas, review of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Astronomy, p. 82.

Booklist, December 15, 1993, review of The Environmentalists: A Biographical Dictionary from the 17th Century to the Present, p. 776; March 1, 1995, review of Dictators and Tyrants: Absolute Rulers and Would-Be Rulers in World History, p. 1267; March 15, 1996, review of Cops, Crooks, and Criminologists: An International Biographical Dictionary of Law Enforcement, p. 1312; December 1, 1996, review of Encyclopedia of the American West, p. 680; September 1, 1997, review of International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders, p. 164; June 1, 1998, review of The Macmillan Dictionary of Military Biography: The Warriors and Their Wars, 3500 B.C.–Present, p. 1812; May 15, 2000, review of The Penguin Dictionary of American Folklore, p. 1790; July, 2000, Ted Hipple, review of Patton on Leadership: Strategic Lessons for Corporate Warfare, p. 2053; November 1, 2000, review of American Treaties and Alliances, p. 568; June 1, 2001, review of Encyclopedia of Historical Treaties and Alliances, p. 1934; November 15, 2001, Ted Hipple, review of Elizabeth I, CEO: Strategic Lessons from the Leader Who Built an Empire, p. 591; August, 2003, review of Van Nostrand's Concise Encyclopedia of Science, p. 2029; May 15, 2005, Kaye Talley, review of Encyclopedia of Wars, p. 1698; January 1, 2006, Kaye Talley, review of Encyclopedia of the American Armed Forces, p. 149; February 1, 2006, Gilbert Taylor, review of Patton: A Biography, p. 9; April 1, 2006, George Cohen, review of Profiles in Audacity: How History's Greatest Leaders Made Their Greatest Decisions, p. 14.

Canadian Manager, spring, 2000, review of Patton on Leadership, p. 30.

Fortune, November 13, 2000, "Just Don't Lock Your Enemies in the Tower: Advice from the Sixteenth Century," interview with Alan Axelrod, p. 458.

History: Review of New Books, summer, 1997, Craig Hendricks, review of Encyclopedia of the American West, p. 155.

Inc., June, 2004, Mike Hofman, "Alan Axelrod, Business Book Juggernaut," interview with Alan Axelrod, p. 30.

Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2005, review of Patton, p. 1305.

Kliatt, March, 2002, Donna L. Scanlon, review of The Penguin Dictionary of American Folklore, p. 26.

Library Journal, May 15, 1997, Stephen L. Hupp, review of International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders, p. 70; November 1, 1999, David M. Alperstein, review of Patton on Leadership, p. 96; December, 1999, Richard K. Burns, review of The Penguin Dictionary of American Folklore, p. 104; June 15, 2000, Dale Farris, review of Patton on Leadership, p. 135; August, 2001, Dale Farris, review of Elizabeth I, CEO, p. 184; April 1, 2002, Grant A. Fredericksen, review of America's Wars, p. 122; December, 2002, Steven J. Mayover, review of Everything I Know about Business I Learned from Monopoly: Successful Executives Reveal Strategic Lessons from the World's Greatest Board Game, p. 142; March 1, 2005, review of Encyclopedia of Wars, p. 114; May 15, 2006, Judith Klamm, review of Profiles in Audacity, p. 109; June, 2006, Susan C. Awe, review of Eisenhower on Leadership: Ike's Enduring Lessons in Total Victory Management, p. 132.

Publishers Weekly, July 10, 2000, review of Elizabeth I, CEO, p. 50; October 14, 2002, review of Everything I Know about Business I Learned from Monopoly, p. 76; April 1, 2003, review of The Go-Getter: The Classic Story that Tells You How to Be One, p. 29; November 28, 2005, review of Patton, p. 33; May 1, 2006, review of Eisenhower on Leadership, p. 53.

School Library Journal, November, 2001, Madeleine G. Wright, review of Encyclopedia of Historical Treaties and Alliances, p. 92; June, 2005, Madeleine G. Wright, review of Encyclopedia of Wars, p. 93.

Science News, March 15, 2003, review of Van Nostrand's Concise Encyclopedia of Science, p. 175.

Sky & Telescope, April, 1999, E. Samuel Palmer, "Respectable Textbook Alternative," p. 80.