This book is a collection of essays written about the history of corporations in America and the role those corporations have played in influencing our history.

The book covers many subjects such as the first corporation chartered by the British crown to explore and exploit New England, how corporations developed in America, the many benefits corporations have provided us, the abuses, how coporations changed our culture, and how our culture has changed corporations.

Specific essays chronicle how Henry Ford started manufacturing cars that regular people could afford, and paid his employees enough to afford them. Another essays discusses GM's rise to compete with Ford and overtake them by not being rigid. There is an essay that discusses how people devote themselves to the business. Another essay discusses the abuses that resulted as Safeway was bought in a Leveraged Buy out. Another discusses racism in business. Etc.

The reason this book gets 3 stars is that some of the essays were fascinating, but some seemed to be just filler.

Jack Beatty combines his own analyses with writers' essays, articles and other materials to chronicle the American corporation from its inception in the 1600s through the present. His overall conclusion seems to be that corporations are a source of more evil than good, but don't let this bias throw you - this collection of sometimes brilliant writings is captivating reading. We from getAbstract highly recommend this book to all students of business history, especially those whose views of the corporate colossus tend toward the darker side.

How to describe this book? It has immense scope ("how the corporation changed America" during the past 350 years) but, under Beatty's brilliant supervision, the narrative somehow retains a sense of intimacy as he and others focus on defining moments, pivotal developments, heroes and villains, great business successes as well as failures, shifting roles played by the federal government, westward expansion, two world wars, natural disasters, and the emergence of high technology This is indeed an epic narrative worthy of Tolstoy with a diversity of "characters" worthy of Dickens. Beatty skillfully blends all manner of different sources with a series of his own commentaries. Great stuff.

In this superb, slim 186-page volume, the author manages to capture the quintessence of Drucker's life-work on management. Drucker's neo-Weberian sociology, the search for the moral basis of capitalism, the influence of Schumpeter (the renegade Austrian economist), the roles of European intellectual currents, his spiritual underpinnings in Kierkegaard, and the social context of Drucker's thought and development--all are ably portrayed here, in all the richness of their context. Penetrating, insightful and never blinded by adulation, the book is also extremely well written. I read a chapter a night and was done inside a week. There are only 2 blemishes. First, he is a bit skimpy on some biographical details (*when* was Drucker born, for example?). Secondly, what in the world does "elide" mean? Here's the sentence: "...Drucker's bold reinvention of government...elides the cardinal difference between government and business...--democratic accountability." You can't even infer the meaning of this strange word from its context. Before I was even finished, I was able to use information in this book to choose (and purchase) 3 other Drucker classics. And excellent, valuable read--don't miss it.

Any of us who has read a book by Peter Drucker has benefited from the experience. However, unless we've been around long enough to read each work as it was published and experienced each in its full social and economic context, we've missed something; for Peter Drucker has been carrying on a dialogue with his readers for decades.

Jack Beatty's writing provides the reader with that much needed context. Piecing together each of Drucker's works, Beatty gives us a tour of the world that Drucker has been trying to show us. Whether we've actually read any of Drucker's works or not; Beatty shows us the threads of reasoning, and patterns of thought, that have both held constant and continually evolved, for over 50 years.

An obvious supporter of Drucker, Beatty doesn't hold back criticism when mistakes are evident; or outcomes less than desired. But in describing Drucker's view of the world, Beatty shows us a view of the man that few would see by reading only selected works out of context. That view of the man, with imperfections and biases, only makes the continuing dialogue more meaningful and useful.

Beatty's book about Drucker's world becomes indistinguishable from a book about Drucker. Drawing on the book's closing paragraph regarding the need to be remembered for the differences one has actually made in people's lives; Beatty has painted a picture with which both he and Drucker can be pleased.

Jack Beatty has taken on a very difficult task here: Capturing the essence of the world's most successful and prolific business thinker and author. I think that he succeeded very well, and certainly added to my understanding of Peter Drucker's writing. Having read many of Drucker's articles and books, I was astonished to find out how many important works I had missed. I appreciate having Jack Beatty open my eyes. In the year since I first read this book, I have read more Drucker than in the last 20 years. This has been a good benefit from THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PETER DRUCKER. I am one of the people mentioned in the book, during the chapter about Professor Drucker's consulting practice, and I found Mr. Beatty has really captured the essence of the man in a way that no other books or articles do. I salute Jack Beatty for having made a great gift to us all, and urge you to buy, read, and use the book to guide your study of Peter Drucker.

I read "The Rascal King" after reading Edwin O'Connor's great "The Last Hurrah," a barely fictional account of Curley's reign over Boston. I have to say that O'Connor achieved with fiction what Beatty failed to do with biography... paint a realistic picture of the fascinating life and times of James M. Curley.

Beatty's work, while greatly researched, was extremely choppy and amateurishly written. His timeline is vague and, at points, difficult to follow. He feels it necessary to interject into Curley's story several times with poorly made comparisons to present day political situations, as well very annoying literary references. (He consistently refers to Curley's arrogance of power as Massachusetts governor as a "Xanadu complex." Why not just call him arrogant?). Overall, it felt like Beatty was trying too hard.

Structural and literay problems aside, James Curley has one of the most interesting stories in 20th century American history. His use of "race baiting" against Boston's old Yankee elite (although "nationality baiting" may be more appropriate a term), his questionable campaign tactics, his dubious financial activities as an elected official, and his compassion and kindnes towards the forgotten common man make him one of the great populist leaders of our history. He was the quintessential campaigner and politician. It's too bad Beatty couldn't do him justice.

As a life long Massachusetts resident born after Curley's death, I have heard antidotes about James M Curley for years and hoped this book would provide the details of this interesting character. But I have to agree with a couple of the previous reviewers, the author's handing of this subject is a bit weak. The early childhood section was the worst, just a string of antidotes that bounce back and forth thru time becoming almost impossible to follow. The author also apparently brought into this work his own personal political agenda. Written in 1992, the author 'liberally' inserts poor and in some cases run on analogies to the Reagan - Bush administrations. I can still recommend this book to those interested in Curley, the books coverage of his career is excellent, just be prepared to skim through the sections where the author vents his political beliefs.

Having been only two years old at Curley's death in 1858, Jack Beatty's book got me up to speed in a hurry. It details not only his life story, but of all of the maneuvering going on behind the scenes" - shrewd is not the half of it. It mentions some principled stands that Curley took, offset by some rapacious greed. And, Beatty suggests that Curley invented modern-day "race-baiting" long ahead of the George Wallaces and Al Sharptons of this world.

For all of its detail, the book is lacking a conclusionary chapter at the end. Jack Beatty has given us all of the pieces (in, once again, comprehensive detail) but doesn't sum them up. For all of his strengths, did James Curley set back the cause of Irish-American politics? For all of his faults, was the average citizen of Boston better off with him (a la George Bailey)? We may need another source for this - for now, Jack Beatty has given us the building blocks.