FRANK ROSE

Viking, 1989

Apple was the archetype of the New Age in American business, a company started in a garage by two California whiz kids who took as their emblem the "perfect fruit," the symbol of knowledge since the Garden of Eden. Yet it soon evolved into a Fortune 500 corporation that would drive out its founders and replace them with a pin-striped, East Coast marketing executive. Secret meetings, high-level power struggles, executive paranoia, corporate intrigue—all these were quite the opposite of the "small is beautiful" extrepreneurial innocence that characterized the early years of the company that invented personal computing.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs hand-picked John Sculley, the president of Pepsi-Cola, to lead Apple into the future, only to find himself pushed out of the chain of command, and ultimately out of Apple itself. But this is more than a story of corporate upheaval; it's another chapter in the myth of the West, with its conflict between the lure of gold and the dream of a golden land, between financial reward and personal fulfillment, between greed and idealism. It is the story of a visionary's fall—a tale that reverberates with the tension between corporate power and cultural revolution.

A national bestseller. Selected as one of the year's ten best by Business Week.

Also published in Japan by The Simul Press; in the Netherlands as De Ontgroening van Apple by Veen/uitgevers; and in the U.K. by Century Hutchinson/Business Books.

Harper & Row, 1984

In a cramped laboratory tucked away in the Berkeley engineering school, a small team of scientists is attempting to teach a computer named Kim to think—not just to shuffle data, but to learn, reason, remember, understand English, make associations, and exhibit that curious quality we call "common sense." But thinking remains an enigma: How do we remember things? How do we forget? How does language work? And how do you translate all of it—learning, understanding, consciousness itself—into the binary code of computers?

Philosophers claim the task is impossible. Others declare it morally suspect. No one knows what impact it will have on society. And deep in the background lies the shadow of the Pentagon, which is paying for the research and has plans for what to do with it, from G.I. robots to animated battle stations. Into the Heart of the Mind is a story that raises provocative questions about the limits of technology and the shape of the future.

A national bestseller.

Also published in France as L'Intelligence Artificielle by Payot; in Japan by The Simul Press; in the Netherlands as De Leerlingen van Frankenstein by Veen/uitgevers; in the U.K. by Century Hutchinson; and in West Germany as In Herz des Verstandes by Roitman Verlag.

Photographs by George Bennett
Doubleday/Dolphin, 1980

This is a book about styles of masculinity—about power and discipline, sex and violence, and the roles they play in the lives of American men today. It can be thought of as a personal and idiosyncratic survey, using a very small and intentionally atypical sample, that was designed to produce not statistical data but individual answers to the question of what it means to be a man. And just as none of these men are intended to be representative, nor are they intended to be heroes. We didn't go looking for heroes, because this book isn't about "real men," the mythical ideal; it's about real men. Here are seven of them.

Books as contributor:

The Agency

"A cram course on the modern entertainment business as seen not from the customary perspective of the the talent, but from the point of view of the humble apparatchiks who doggedly tried to prevent the lunatics from wrecking their asylum."
—Peter Bart, New York Times Book Review

"Like sitting in on a long, gossipy afternoon at the Hillcrest Country Club, feasting on a collection of war tales from the front lines of show business.... The Agency is more than a titillating string of bold-face names, though; Rose uses the saga of the Morris Agency's rise and fall as a prism through which to examine the constantly evolving nature of show business itself."
—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Reveals the shark tank at its most lethal and hilarious. The anecdotes come at us at assault-rifle speed."
—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"If you like to read juicy details of the usually dysfunctional lifestyles of movie and television stars, this is a book for you." —Chicago Tribune

"A brash, sometimes funny, often poignant and engaging story.... It's a darker side of show biz than one sees on Entertainment Tonight. But serious students of popular culture and fans of smart storytelling will find a lot to enjoy."
—USA Today

West of Eden

"The definitive account of the convulsive period that saw Apple grow up."
—Katie Hafner, Business Week

"A case study of the California style of creativity smashing headlong into the realities of Wall street.... Frank Rose has written the book on Apple Computer and the entire Silicon Valley phenomenon."
—Kevin Starr, USC University Professor and author of the six-volume history Americans and the California Dream

"A bracing keyhole view of a swarm of rich, talented people frequently at each others' throats."
—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"No other book has done a better job of presenting the bitter breakup between Sculley and Jobs."
—Newsweek

"In this corporate Bildungsroman, the impending showdown between the two executives had mythic reverberations.... Jobs is, Rose argues, the ultimate Californian, torn between gold-lust and visionary ideals."
—Steven Levy, New York Post

"Provides convincing proof that life at young California companies is anything but laid back."
—Michael Moritz, The Wall Street Journal

"A textured, multi-dimensional work.... This book can been enjoyed on a number of levels, and each will be rewarding. It's exciting reading."
—Robert Sobel, Barron's

"A vivid, intriguing portrait of an extraordinary community.... This is a gem." —Chicago Tribune

Into the Heart of the Mind

"Lucid and authoritative ...it demystifies a disturbing subject."
—Washington Post

"A good, accessible report for the general reader on one of the most bizarre fascinations of modern science."
—Theodore Roszak,
San Francisco Chronicle