????曾經，托馬斯?愛迪生對一頭大象施以電刑，只是為了展示競爭對手所采用技術的危險性。曾經，耐克（Nike）挖空心思要打壓勢頭生猛的銳步（Reebok），簽下了一名叫做邁克爾?喬丹的大學籃球運動員。曾經，中央太平洋鐵路公司（Central Pacific Railroad）在24小時內不可思議地鋪設了10英里（16.09公里）鐵軌，只是為了避免政府的付款旁落到老對頭聯合太平洋鐵路（Union Pacific）手中。

????角逐能催生偉大的故事，最偉大的角逐則催生最偉大的傳奇——這樣的理由足以說明下面的文字值得一讀——它們描寫的是聰慧、欺詐、高貴、謊言、勝利和失敗。如果你是那種進取型讀者，希望獲得更多實際效用，你也一定會有所收獲。畢竟，不朽的商業戰役改變了世界。我們無法想象沒有手機或互聯網的生活，但如果微不足道的MCI沒有去挑戰龐大的美國電話電報公司（AT&T）（二者的爭奪在我們的榜單中名列第四），通訊革命的進程就會截然不同。史蒂夫?喬布斯和比爾?蓋茨（名列第六）只是在寥寥數個產品上存在沖突，卻為了在計算機領域實現大相徑庭的愿景比拼了35年。全球經濟無法離開航空運輸，而正是空客（Airbus）與波音（Boeing ）40年來無休止的競爭，才使得空中旅行更快更好。

????但是，強大的對手也可能使人迷失，而忽視了戰場之外發生的事情。可口可樂（Coke）和百事可樂（Pepsi）（名列第一）忙于向對方飽以老拳，卻錯過了一個全新的概念。今天，令他們尷尬的是，美國便利店中銷量最高的能量飲料并不是他們中間任何一家的產品（而是紅牛。）通用汽車（General Motors）和福特（Ford）的注意力全都在對方身上，直到某一天發現他們的利潤大多都流向了豐田（Toyota）。

????這些故事中，最難以抹去的是每場沖突中濃重的人文色彩。只有最大膽的小說家才能想象出阿迪達斯（Adidas）與彪馬（Puma）（名列第20）之間兄弟相爭的傳奇。威尼斯與熱那亞（名列第七）看起來似乎是兩個宿怨城邦的故事，卻定下了歐洲幾百年來的競爭基調。而鐵路公司之間的角逐則是一副關于經濟和種族的畫卷。它波瀾起伏，充斥著破壞、欺騙與死亡。

????誰需要這些經驗教訓呢？沒錯，就是你。想想這些戲劇般的沖突，把它作為一種無須自責的樂趣。然后，為你的任務做好準備，把你的對手打得一敗涂地。（財富中文網）

????There was the time Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant to demonstrate the danger of a competitor's technology. The day that Nike (NKE, Fortune 500), desperate for an advantage over a surging Reebok, signed a college hoops player named Michael Jordan. And the time the Central Pacific Railroad laid an astounding 10 miles of track in 24 hours to grab government payments that the hated Union Pacific would otherwise claim.

????Rivalries make great stories, and the greatest rivalries make the greatest tales -- reason enough to read the following portraits of brilliance, skullduggery, nobility, mendacity, victory, and failure. But if you're the driven type who demands more practical benefits, you'll find those here too. After all, monumental business battles have changed the world. We cannot imagine life without cellphones or the Internet, but if tiny MCI hadn't challenged the titanic AT&T (T, Fortune 500)(the No. 4 rivalry in our ranking), the communications revolution would have played out much differently. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (No. 6) ended up selling few competing products yet contended for 35 years to impose radically different visions of computing. And a global economy that couldn't function without air travel is far faster and better because Airbus and Boeing (BA,Fortune 500) (No. 9) have had to fight each other every day for 40 years.

????But powerful rivalries can be blinding, obscuring events beyond the combatants' battlefield. Coke(KO, Fortune 500) and Pepsi (PEP, Fortune 500) (No. 1) were so busy pounding the daylights out of each other that they missed an entirely new notion, and today, inconceivably, the bestselling energy drink in U.S. convenience stores isn't made by either company. (It's Red Bull.)General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) and Ford (F, Fortune 500) obsessed over each other until one day Toyota (TM) had stolen the bulk of their profits.

????What comes through most strongly in these stories is each conflict's sheer human intensity. Only a brave novelist would have imagined the brother vs. brother saga of Adidas vs. Puma (No. 20). Venice vs. Genoa (No. 7) may look like a dusty tale of feuding city-states, but it set the tone for hundreds of years of European competition. The rivalry between the railroads was economic, ethnic, and spectacular, involving sabotage, deception, and death.

????Who needs such lessons? Oh, right, you do. So think of these dramas as guilt-free pleasures. Then, well prepared for the task, go forth and pulverize your rivals.