Book excerpt: George Romney built an unconventional political career that inspired and moved many, including his son Willard Mitt Romney. Romney's Way: A Man and An Idea is George Romney's story, from his Mormon upbringing, through his journey as a maverick industrialist to his place in Republican leadership in Democratic Michigan. In 1966, T. George Harris took a five-month leave as senior editor at Look magazine to study Romney, his successes and failures and his innovations. Moving freely through Romney's past and present, Romney's Way explores the dominant theme of his life: With workers, executives, consumers, parents, taxpayers, party members and the poor, he sought to give people control of the forces that impinged upon their lives. He believed he lived in an age that assumed that all citizens must be part of an inert if affluent mass. Romney instead had a practical vision of how participatory democracy can work for everyone. Harris frankly discusses the strengths and limitation and, above all, the rebellious originality of George Romney's "urban populism.” Everything about George Romney is examined, including 12 years of his tax returns. Deeply penetrating and provocative, Romney's Way provides vital insight into the world that nurtured and influenced Mitt Romney. A legendary magazine entrepreneur, T. George Harris turned Psychology Today from a wobbly startup into a publication widely recognized as the lifestyle magazine of the '70s. Later he launched American Health, which became the Bible of the health movement in '80s. He served as Washington correspondent for Time and as Time-Life-Fortune bureau chief in Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco.