"Good corporate drama... an enlightening narrative of how new communications infrastructures often come about." -- The Economist, "A Book of the Year 2016"

In the early 1990s, Motorola developed a revolutionary satellite system called Iridium that promised to be its crowning achievement. Its constellation of 66 satellites in polar orbit was a mind-boggling technical accomplishment, surely the future of communication. The only problem was that Iridium the company was a commercial disaster. Only months after launching service, it was $11 billion in debt, burning through $100 million a month and crippled by baroque rate plans and agreements that forced calls through Moscow, Beijing, Fucino, Italy, and elsewhere. Bankruptcy was inevitable -- the largest to that point in American history. And when no real buyers seemed to materialize, it looked like Iridium would go down as just a "science experiment."

That is, until Dan Colussy got a wild idea. Colussy, a former head of Pan-Am now retired and working on his golf game in Palm Beach, heard about Motorola's plans to "de-orbit" the system and decided he would buy Iridium and somehow turn around one of the biggest blunders in the history of business.

Impeccably researched and wonderfully told, Eccentric Orbits is a rollicking, unforgettable tale of technological achievement, business failure, the military-industrial complex, and one of the greatest deals of all time.

"Deep reporting put forward with epic intentions... a story that soars and jumps and dives and digresses... [A] big, gutsy, exciting book." -- The Wall Street Journal, "A Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2016"

"Spellbinding... A tireless researcher, Bloom delivers a superlative history... A tour de force." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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• Engineering & Transportation

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