ABSTRACT
In the early autumn of 1988, Tod Clare sat alone in the vacant nineteenth floor of the American Center, the silvery skyscraper on the outskirts of Detroit that had once served as the corporate headquarters for American Motors. Outside his office there was nothing but acres of worn carpet, empty desks, a single lonely secretary, a Xerox machine, bare wires, and a 360-degree expanse of glass windows. The Jeeps and other AMC products that had once proudly adorned the downstairs lobby were now gone. On the desk inside Clare’s office, room 1960, lay a book on how to set up a business inside your home. His office walls still displayed large maps of Egypt and China, reminders of Clare’s former career as AMC’s vice president for international operations. He was a modern-day Ozymandias, a once mighty executive abandoned in the wreckage of a corporate takeover.
