As Sam Walton himself said, this is "...a story about entrepreneurship, and risk, and hard work, and knowing where you want to go and being willing to do what it takes to get there. And it's a story about believing in your idea even when maybe some other folks don't, and about sticking to your guns." It's the story of how Walton parlayed a single dime store in a hardscrabble cotton town into Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world. The undisputed merchant king of the late twentieth century, he never lost the common touch. Here Walton tells his extraordinary story in his own inimitable words. Genuinely modest, but always sure of his ambitions and achievements, Walton shares his thinking in a candid, straight-from-the-shoulder style.

"Here is an extraordinary success story about a man whose empire was built not with smoke and mirrors, but with good old-fashioned elbow grease." (Detroit Free Press)

山姆·沃尔顿(1918-1992)，沃尔玛创始人。1945年从一家“五毛店”开始进入零售业， 1985年成为美国首富；2001年，他创建的沃尔玛帝国成为世界500强第一名，沃尔顿家族的5人包揽“福布斯”财富排行榜第7至第11位，成为世界上最富有的家族。

山姆·沃尔顿把低价销售、疯狂促销的理念带入零售业，创立了一套严密的商业哲学，改变了美国乃至全球的现代零售业形态。