Business As Unusual: Summary and book reviews of Business As Unusual by Anita Roddick, plus links to an excerpt from Business As Unusual and a biography of Anita Roddick.
Business As Unusual The Triumph of Anita Roddick
by Anita Roddick
Hardcover: Jan 2001,
287 pages.
Paperback: Apr 2002,
287 pages.
If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito. Anita Roddick
Anita Roddick has put her money not only where her mouth is, but where her heart is! By refusing to sell (or buy) products that exploit the world and its inhabitants, Roddick, the founder of the internationally respected and successful corporation, The Body Shop, has set a higher standard for business around the world to achieve.
Business As Unusual charts the meteoric rise of this outspoken and controversial entrepreneur, and the landmark success of her company, The Body Shop, through the last decade. The creator of the twentieth most recognized brand worldwide, Roddick shares her vision of how businesses can successfully evolve in the new millennium without losing sight of the big picture.
Ranging from personal issues such as making it as a woman and the tyranny of the beauty business globalization to wider political issues such as the everyday human rights abuses associated with globalization Business As Unusual offers a fresh plan for dealing with the demands of ethical business.
Roddick stresses that the power of public pressure to create change should never be underestimated. From the 1995 boycott of Shell to the battle of Seattle at the World Trade Center in 1999, Roddick argues that waves of public consciousness are steadily forcing corporations to re-evaluate their actions. By promoting the concept of philanthropic entrepreneurism and the language of business and business ethics, Business As Unusual turns the tables on the corporate world's business as usual, compelling it to transform into a force for positive change.
The media would have us believe that Roddick isn't quite as true to her beliefs as she states in her book, and that the Body Shop's business practices are not quite as squeaky clean as they might be. Whether this be so or not is not known to this reviewer, but what is certain is that Business as Unusual is an inspirational book, one part memoir and one part history of the Body Shop (the two being integrally linked) which illustrates how a business can be both profitable, moral and philanthropic. Roddick emphasizes the power of the individual to change politics and the direction of big corporations by becoming educated consumers.
Media Reviews
INC. Magazine
This woman has changed business forever.
Vogue
…at the bottom of Estee Lauder's jar is the world of eternal youth. At the bottom of Anita's jar is the world itself.
USA Today
The Body Shop isn't just a shop. It's an arena of education.
Library Journal
This book will provoke a thoughtful response from students, teachers, and the business world.
Publisher's Weekly
Roddick can be hard to take when she soapboxes about the need for businesses to change the world. Her keenest insights are on how passion and opportunism can launch a business; she also has much of value to say about how she refashioned her business in order to survive.
The Independent (London)
She bristles with ideas, outrage and anecdotes.
The Observer (London)
Most CEOs aren't fit to lick peppermint off Anita's feet.
Business Week
Few Entrepreneurs have tied their product to a social cause with better effect.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Prachi Priya
Business as Unusual is an inspiring book for any Tom, dick and harry . It is inspiring for budding entrepreneur, for women , for any business man. What i lked most about the book was Anita's view on beauty redefined. Beauty is not just skindeep... Read More
Rated of 5
by Anna Smith
I am a proud employee of The Body Shop. This book has been an inspirational and educational, but it also gives us encouragement to question and appreciate our world.
Rated of 5
by Kelly Munro
This book is amazing... Anita is amazing! She is so real. Entrepreneurs should learn from Anita.
Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.
There are vital performance and career lessons here for managers at every level, and, best of all, the book shows you how to apply them to your own situation.
These are 2 of the 6 readalike suggestions for Business As Unusual. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.
A bold, mesmerizing novel about the woman known as "Typhoid Mary," the first known healthy carrier of typhoid fever in the burgeoning metropolis of early twentieth century New York.
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight...
read more
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
read more
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
read more
British Parliament asks Amazon to clarify why it pays $9 million in income tax on $23 billion of UK sales.(May 20 2013) Amazon will be called back to give further evidence to members of the British Parliament "to clarify how its activities in the U.K. justify its low corporate...
Full Story
BookBrowse
Vogue
of 5
by Prachi Priya
of 5
by Kelly Munro
Write your own review!
