In Wal-Mart: The Bully of Bentonville, author Anthony Bianco explains the love-hate relationship between consumers and the company. First of all, I have to say that this was an enjoyable read! All the elements and statistical data sought by a historian are present despite B Bianco's anti-Wal-Mart tendency. Wal-Mart tells the story of major retailer Sam Walton B, who himself may have been the bully of Bentonville B and the Wal-Mart corporation. Bianco recounts the things that made Walton so beloved and innovative (e.g., omnidirectional integration, self-checkout, and automated performance monitoring) and his company so reviled. It also looks at Wal-Mart's struggles with unionization, its fair trade practices and the importation of foreign-made goods. Finally, it explores the real sociological cost of Wal-Mart's low prices. Bianco's approach to analyzing Wal-Mart is interesting. By combining concrete facts and arguments with hand-crafted anecdotes, he manages to get the reader to sympathize with his vitriolic attacks on the retail giant. In the first chapter, Bianco presents the objective evidence against Wal-Mart as if he were a prosecutor prosecuting a murderer at trial. Bianco's main argument concerns Wal-Mart's blatant violations of laws and business ethics. Wal-Mart's arrogance, Bianco says, is uprooted. . . in its presumption that selling large quantities of merchandise at a discount allows it to represent[]@ the American consumer. (p. 3). Bianco painstakingly takes note of Wal-Mart's own numbers, government reports, and employee "testimony" to build his case against Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart's criminal record is a mile long when it comes to union busting, child labor law violations, overtime violations, minimum wage issues, gender bias and racial conflicts, the crushing of communities, theft from small businesses, security issues such as confinement. employees despite the fact that emergency personnel would be locked out, and I'm sure if Bianco looked closely enough he might discover a murder or two. On the defensive end, there's H. Lee Scott, Jr., who looks every inch the inside. chief executive officer of America's largest and most powerful corporation.@ (p. 1). Scott is quick to tout (and rightly so) Wal-Mart's accomplishments, primarily in providing B Americans, especially those on tight B budgets, with quality products at low prices. In 2004, Wal-Mart's prices saved Americans about $900 each while generating revenues in the hundreds of billions. Bianco writes that "Wal-Mart is bigger than any company has ever been." (p. 9 (emphasis mine)). What's wrong with that? Isn't that the goal of capitalism??