Ambani & Sons

As a history of India’s industrialization and politics, no other book does it better than Ambani & Sons. The Ambani family, particularly Dhirubhai and Kokilaben, and their sons Mukesh and Anil, occupied the center of Indian history and politics for the last 50 years. As a history of the Ambani family, the book obtains most of its information from the more salacious stories and tabloid reports that surrounded the family. It does not contain first-hand interviews of the family or people who actually understood and knew what was going on in the family. What the book does provide are details of major business deals by Dhirubhai and sons in their building of the Ambani business empire, which is undoubtedly one of the most successful enterprise in the world and in history, exceeding any thing that the great emperors and dynasties created in India. The son of a relatively poor school teacher, Dhirubhai started with nothing and ended up with a vertical business empire that controlled the petroleum-polyester-clothing industry of the world. His sons extended this empire into communications (cell phones) and biotechnology. I highly recommend this book who wants to understand the history of Indian’s industrialization and politics. The Ambanis are really that important to India’s modernization.The story ends at about 2010 and unfortunately no other authors have stepped in to continue the history. That history, which is the story of the two sons and their competition with each other to dominate the communication industry of 1.3 billion people of India, is still ongoing. The recent India’s Supreme Court decision to require Anil Ambani to pay a $66 million debt to Erickson or face imprisonment is causing many people to scratch their heads. The reason that Reliance Communications owned by Anil is having so much money problems is because of vicious competition from Mukesh’s Reliance Jio. Why doesn’t Mukesh step in to guarantee or lend this amount to Anil? Why are the brothers hurting each other? Incidentally, if they were not competing with each other, the courts and politicians would actually be more worried because Mukesh and Anil together control more than half of the cell phone traffic of India. If they stopped competing and worked with each other, it would be a monopoly that could crush all competitors.Towards the end of the book, Hamesh McDonald tries to present both sides, the stories spun by the critics and supporters of the Ambani family. He points out that India was a mess with huge tariffs and government regulations of industry that could be manipulated by bribes of government officials. Everybody agrees that the Ambani’s had no choice but engage in the corruption in order to succeed. There is also widespread applause for the success of Dhirubhai who built the first corporate empire that attracted worldwide investment and admiration. At one point, Mukesh and Anil were respectively the number 3 and 4 richest men in the world, superceded only by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. McDonald does not excuse the behavior but points out that the Ambanis had little choice and their activities contributed to the establishment of rational regulations that controlled the excesses of capitalism in a particularly Indian approach.

This book incorporates much of MDonald's an earlier biography of Dhirubhai Ambani that the family managed to have suppressed in India in 1998. But it extends the Reliance story through another decade. McDonald lived in India for several years while the Ramnath Goenka-Dhirubhai Ambani-Nusli Wadia story unfolded and knows a great deal about the events of the time. Even though I lived in India then and closely followed the press stories about this and other scandals, I have learned much from this book. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to get a grasp of the decaying late Nehruvian business-political milieu where Ambani clawed his way to the top. One learns a great deal about that period, the internal intrigues in the Congress Party and Government of India, financial institutions etc. McDonald manages to explain the intricacies of rules, definitions and financial markets before clearly.Unfortunately, the Ambanis cut McDonald out of their side of the story and so I get a slight feeling that it is a little tilted towards Bombay Dyeing and Nusli Wadia who appear to have been more forthcoming. The Bombay Dyeing synthetic textile fiber plant that sought to compete with Patalganga was recently sold for scrap however. The book is illustrated with some absolutely marvelous photos including a memorable mug-shot. It includes a careful review of the Bollywood movie "Guru" based on the life of Dhirubhai.

Although this book seems written more as a criticizing of Dhirubhai's business tactics, I read it mostly to find out what type of mindset does it take to achieve what Reliance has achieved in India. I liked this book.

I really enjoyed reading this one. As a child of the 80's-90's it was almost as if I was revisiting the political/social landscape of my youth... only this time I was aware of the invisible colossus who shaped it by his unique interpretation of "Saam Daam Dand Bhed" (Chanakya's dictum about getting things done via the power of persuasive, financial, punitive and/or subversive action as applicable).The detailed accounts of financial manipulations of Reliance and the Stock Market are sometimes too figure-heavy and technical (the reason I took out one star), but once you pick this up very hard to put it down.

This is the story of indomitable "Will" the greatness of Dhirubhai Ambani. Like all of us he had his failings, but few canquestion him as a builder. Dive in, discover and unravel the world of one of India's legendary business tycoon. There isonly way that he could have built what he did and that the fire within him was much greater than the aspiration for wealth,it was dignity.

It is great book, enlightening that how Ambani Group strived by putting great efforts in creating commonable project despite huge blocks, the true grit of promotors is inpiring, please find more such indian enterpreuners and write about them to inspire new generation, who is very hungry and has great appetite.

Disappointed. To say the least.I have been waiting to read this book as I was intrigued by the rise of the Ambanis-as such, I was delighted when I discovered that the text was now in Kindle format. Upon reading this tripe however, instead of a tight narrative or a concise discourse about India's most prominent industrialist family, I was treated to an incoherent, almost tabloid like mess of jumbled paragraphs. Hamish goes on an inane, random literary assault, chasing tangent after tangent until he runs out of the putrid firepower he calls his writing-well, until the next chapter begins.Just awful.

The action behind the screen is what this book gives you. The real story of the self made billionaire and one of the greatest Indian success story. Fast paced story with real insight.

The perfect book for getting an idea of capitalism (the Indian version). The fact based approach of the book makes is very interesting to connect the dots for even someone like me who had a fair idea of most of the main incidents mentioned in the book since most where highly publicized in the media. However the extra mile that the author has travelled to unveil the curtain and let us peek into what goes on in the back stage has been very riveting indeed. The saga which started well before 1991 liberalisation has continued into new age India and the sons have made sure that the company continues to be a force to reckon with inspite of a slew of multi-billion dollar companies having sprouted across industries. As a young man during my bachelors and masters course I always admired Dhirubhai and found him to be an inspiration at various stages. Reading the book makes one wonder about the extent of ingenuity possible from one man starting from an extremely humble background with severe resource constraints and turns the adage "sky is the limit" on its head. Different people would surely have different opinions about Dhirubhai, my opinion being that he will for always be the Indian Steve Jobs.

The book only revolves around how drihubhai became so rich, has literally no information of Reliance, Mukesh, Anil and there so called big fued. Almost 70% book completed. The information and insider info is almost zero after Dhirubhai death.Just an update copy of the polyester prince with all negative info removed so the booked cannot be banned again, that's it.

Good condition

An unputdownable book. A great follow up to the Polyester Prince by the same author the sale of which was got banned in India by the Ambani.

Best ever book that I have ever read. Well researched and insightful. Compelled me to read other books of author. Only one correction : dhiru bhai was never awarded bharat ratna.