W Edwards Deming

If 1991 was a sour year for business, it was a pretty good year for business books. A strong category for publishers since the late 1970s, U.S. publishers this year put out nearly 2,000 business titles (more, if you include economics and related fields). Though sales were flat, more titles were published. Better yet, quality remained strong. Here's a highly subjective list of the year's best business books in an assortment of fields.

On Sept. 27, Newt Gingrich and the House Republicans issued their now-notorious "Contract with America," a 10-plank platform including tax and spending cuts, a balanced-budget amendment, legal reform and term limits. Predictably, President Clinton and the Democrats pounced, labeling it "Voodoo 2," and "Reagan Redux," a budget-busting, job-exporting "Contract on America." The media reaction has been just as harsh: "Broken Contract," snarled the New Republic.

The city of Los Angeles has joined a lawsuit to ensure an accurate count of its residents in the 2000 Census by using statistical sampling. It seeks to avoid the substantial undercounting that occurred in the 1990 Census, which deprived the city of hundreds of millions of dollars. Opposed is House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), a man much given to invoking his intellectual heroes, the foremost of whom, W.

Life lessons Re "From sickbed, Garfield legend is still delivering," March 7 Bravo for following the story of former Garfield High School teacher Jaime Escalante, the legendary Advanced Placement calculus instructor introduced to Americans in the film "Stand And Deliver," which chronicled his work in the classroom. Hats off to the wonderful inspiration he gave all of us, and may his life remain an example for us in years to come. Maybe one of his former students could come forth to fund a scholarship or plaque at Garfield.

Even at age 86, W. Edwards Deming, the curmudgeon of manufacturing quality, can deliver his message with evangelical fire. "Can you blame your competitor for your woes? No. Can you blame the Japanese? No," he recently admonished a banquet room here filled with representatives from some of the biggest names in corporate America. "You did it yourself." Deming is a statistician who has become an international business legend.

Actors have the Oscar. Writers have the Pulitzer. Musicians have the Grammy. But who honors the companies that strive, year after year, for superior standards? On Monday, U.S. industrialists will have their prize too: the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. "A lot of companies say, 'Quality is our middle name,' " observed Curt W. Reimann, director of the award program that is named for the U.S. secretary of commerce who died in a rodeo accident last year.

Last fall, in a Moscow hotel over a glass of Armenian cognac, Glendale consultant Jody Darling agreed to help a former Soviet military complex privatize. In exchange he got 5% ownership. From the outside, the factory doesn't look like much. Located in the ancient Russian city of Yaroslavl, about 150 miles north of Moscow, is a huge grim-looking factory called Mashpribor.

Six General Motors workers in the Van Nuys plant call themselves the Cobras, not because anyone has told them to adopt a name, but because they feel they should have one. When lunch break comes, they go to the same restaurants. When it's time to study, they do that together too.

Thirty-five years ago, at the beginning of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s, Abraham Maslow, a renowned humanist psychologist, stumbled across a novel experiment in democratic management. Maslow, who taught at Brandeis University, was on sabbatical at Non-Linear Systems, a technology company in Del Mar, Calif.

Even at 86 years of age, W. Edwards Deming, the curmudgeon of manufacturing quality, can deliver his message with evangelical fire. "Can you blame your competitor for your woes? No. Can you blame the Japanese? No," he recently admonished a banquet room here filled with representatives from some of the biggest names in corporate America. 'You did it yourself."' Deming is a statistician who has become an international business legend.