Despite the hyperbole of the title, John Micklethwait and Adrian Woodrige strive to make this a book that does not take on of the extreme positions on globalization -- IE, neither an attack on it, like One World Ready Or Not, nor a full on, pie-eyed endorsement, like The Lexus and The Olive Tree. This is kind of a head fake, because really they are pretty much in favor of liberalizing trade as much as possible. They acknowledge potential problems, but almost always explain them away with a pro-market argument. If you're a fan of the Economist (I am) you'll enjoy the book no matter what your views on globalization, because it's written with the smarts and humor of that magazine. It's also lucidly argued, and packed with solid research and interesting anecdotes collected from every corner of the planet, even if they do cut corners from time to time when the facts aren't going their way, and are kind of cavalier about the losers in globalization. The biggest blind spot -- and of course it's easy to say this with the benefit of hindsight -- is that the shrinking of the world via increased trade etc. is much more fragile than it seemed a couple of years ago. They do acknowledge this to some extent -- there's a lot of good historical examples sprinkled in -- but the current environment feels more like one of fragmentation than oneness. (The paperback version is worth picking because the new introduction at least deals with Sept. 11.) Nevertheless, A Future Perfect is a solid introduction to a topic that is still incredibly important.

This book is a wonderfully complete analysis of the causes and effects of globalization. It examines the benefits, the winners and losers, and the facilitators or impediments of globalization. The authors take a truely global stance themselves by examining cases around the world, describing both the glorious benefits and the much more publicised unfortunate consequences of the evolution from local to national to global economic competition. A must read!

Micklethwait and Wooldridge have written a crucial work on globalization, drawing from a wide array of current and recent events. It is hard to see the forest when you are in the midst of the trees, but these two lead the reader to reasonable perspectives about the current evolution of the world. Years of editing and reporting, under the aegis of the highly reputable British magazine, the Economist, has rendered they two young writers nothing short of wise at an early age. They write in general with more permanence than journalists do generally. Their inherent alienation from US precepts, as foreigners, makes their perspective on that country more vivid than one might expect. This book is essential equipment for the informed adult.

For those workers in the trenches who have recently found themselves downsized due to the latest round of "re-engineering,".....

For those frustrated managers who have had just one too many management consultants imposed upon them by paranoid executives.......

For those paranoid executives who feel they need to hire the "latest and greatest" consultants to stay ahead of the competition.......

.....You must read this book.

Written by two staff editors of the economist, this book reveals the charlatanism surrounding the management consultant industry, and how the growth of the industry has led to the imposition of new management techniques which may be entirely irrelevant to the enterprise, its workers, and the shareholders. The prose is what you would expect from The Economist - pragmatic, and easy to read.

The conclusions are straightforward and hard to ignore.

As one of the senior Editors at The Economist warned the authors while they were writing the book: "You know what worries me about your book about management theory: that you'll talk to all the people and read all the books; that you will detail all its incredible effects - the number of jobs lost, the billions of dollars spent, and so on. And you won't say the obvious thing: that it's 99 percent bullshit. And everybody knows that" (from the prologue).

Indeed, if everybody read this book, his statement would ring true

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge are to management fads what the little child was to the naked emperor and The Witch Doctors is their manifest. When you enter the pages of this extremely well written oeuvre you're bascially not in Management-haven, Kansas anymore. Where management literature usually dramatizes, Micklethwait and Wooldridge present a sober view and make a point of playing down the actual impact and importance of so-called Gurus. With the stealth and graceful elegance of secret service assassins, the authors meticulously work through thinkers and movements, with chapters divided for pedagogic simplicity into chronological order. Something striking is the high correlation between the chronology and the order of importance; this could be attributed to nostalgia but is more likely a result of the fact that management "thinking" has become unscrupulously popular over the last decade, with everyone from football coaches to Roseanne Barr wanting to share their secrets of success with results that, at best, can be described as mixed. It is therefore no coincidence that the final, and most enjoyable, chapter is entitled "A walk on the wild side" - a reference to the fact that many of the people that get in on the action today bear more than a little resemblance to actual witch doctors with results as often doubtful as they are deceiving. Better then to long for yesteryear when men were men and people like Charles Handy, Michael Porter and, the Godfather of management thinkers, Peter Drucker roamed free. But even in the chapters describing these earlier movements, Micklethwait and Wooldridge employ the dry, sarcastic wit that is so intimately associated with their mother magazine, The Economist. It is not that they're so much angry or accusatory as genuinely professional journalists and in era when the borders between the editorial and the commercial interests are constantly blurred, this is the least one could ask for. You may be one of those people who prefer to immerse yourself in an experience, such as watching the parade of a naked emperor or gawking at a "truly amazing behind-the-scenes look at a new movie" which is often what management seminars are all about from a metaphorical perspective. But if you don't mind, or perhaps even prefer, a tell-it-like-it-is perspective even though it may ruin your temporary immersion in something, The Witch Doctors is a rare gem. Why not test yourself; are you a channel 7-action news kind of a person or someone who takes the time to read through a daily newspaper? Do you see management seminars as a source of knowledge or as one of entertainment? And finally, do you prefer to look away when you catch an accidental glance at Mickey Mouse stripping off his costume at Disneyland to keep the illusion real or do you revel in the fact that Disneyworld is just one more commercial attraction like many others and one that, in purpose, is no different from the K-Mart down the street? If you preferred the former in each of these questions, congratulations to you and the management literature industry since Amazon and its competitors will always have rows of titles uncovering corporate "secrets", seven "brilliant" thoughts on nothing in particular and countless case studies about companies you've never heard of or will never have much in common with. If you, on the other hand, preferred the latter, The Witch Doctors is a valuable and helpful delight to read. Trivializing -sure, but not if you compare it to the way that three centuries of literature is compressed into vulgar travesties like "Chicken Soup for the fain-hearted" in this day and age.

This book provides a clear-thinking analysis of the wide spectrum of management theories and applications, and points to several very important limitations inherent in the modern management consultancy industry.

In particular, it exposes:

1. the unnecessary promotion of business and management 'jargon'
2. the excessive tendency towards pursuing the latest 'fad'
3. the reluctance to look beneath the surface of ideas or concepts, in order to analyse them critically.

Aptly titled "The Witch Doctors", this book lifts much of the
facade from the management advice industry, providing a reasoned
evaluation of 'the workability factor' underpinning key management theories.

The book contains 14 very interesting chapters, but perhaps the
most insightful are the following four:

Chapter 2: The Management Theory Industry
Chapter 6: Knowledge, Learning and Innovation
Chapter 9: The Future of Work
Chapter 10: What Does Globalisation Mean?

Although written in 1996, this book retains much of its currency and relevancy at the beginning of the 21st century. It won the Global Business Book Award in 1996 for the best book written about strategy and leadership, and received high acclaim from the Journal of Business Strategy, arguing that it was "possibly the best-written business book of (its) decade". Even Harvard Business Review considered it "a worthy contribution" noting that "it is broad in its range of information and insights".

Perhaps its highest endorsement, however, comes from Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor of Management at Harvard Business School, and herself the author of a number of very good management and business books. She says "Read it before buying any other book!"

To the ordinary reader looking to gain relevant insights into the world of management thought, this book is an ideal tool. It is written in an easily accessible style, and doesn't necessarily require the reader to absorb it from cover to cover. Genuine insights can be gained by reviewing individual chapters in isolation.

Along with "Dangerous Company" by O'Shea & Madigan, and "The Lexus & the Olive Tree" by Tom Friedman, "The Witch Doctors" is arguably one of the most insightful business books to be released in the past 20 years.

Although I would recommend this text to generalist readers seeking a (remarkably) concise introduction to history of the business corporation, I came away somewhat disappointed. There is little doubt Micklethwait and Wooldridge are correct in their claim that the corporation is now the key economic institution in Western nations. Yet, it did not have to turn out that way. As Micklethwait and Wooldridge usefully remind us, two centuries ago, leading business and economic thinkers (including the great Adam Smith) derided the joint stock company. What explains the relatively rapid development in the mid-19th century of a recognizably modern corporation and, in turn, that entity's emergence as the dominant form of economic organization?

Micklethwait and Wooldridge offer a fairly conventional answer to that question, based largely on new technologies -- especially the railroad -- requiring vast amounts of capital, the advantages such large firms derived from economies of scale, the emergence of limited liability that made it practicable to raise large sums from numerous passive investors, and the rise of professional management. Readers familiar with the work of business historian Alfred Chandler will find relatively little new in this part of the story, although Micklethwait and Woolridge's treatment has the advantage for generalist readers of being considerably more accessible than is most of Chandler's work. Instead of offering any novel historical analysis, Micklethwait and Wooldridge's principal potential contribution (albeit one they failed adequately to realize) is the normative thesis to be derived from the historical account.

In their introduction, Micklethwait and Wooldridge's lay out a claim that will be familiar to readers of Michael Novak's work (surprisingly, however, they seem unaware of his seminal work). Like Novak, Micklethwait and Wooldridge argue not only that the corporation is one of "the West's great competitive advantages," but also that the number of private-sector corporations a country boasts is a relatively good guide to the degree of political freedom it provides its citizens. (xx) Unfortunately, this insight goes nowhere.

The normative claim is entirely plausible. The rise of modern corporations did more than just expand the economic pie. The legal system that facilitated their rise necessarily allowed individuals freedom to pursue the accumulation of wealth. Economic liberty, in turn, proved a necessary concomitant of personal liberty-the two have almost always marched hand in hand. In turn, the modern public corporation has turned out to be a powerful engine for focusing the efforts of individuals to maintain the requisite sphere of economic liberty. Those whose livelihood depends on corporate enterprise cannot be neutral about political systems. Only democratic capitalist societies permit voluntary formation of private corporations and allot them a sphere of economic liberty within which to function, which gives those who value such enterprises a powerful incentive to resist both statism and socialism. As Michael Novak has observed, private property and freedom of contract were indispensable if private business corporations were to come into existence. In turn, the corporation gave liberty economic substance over and against the state. Regrettably, after laying it out, Micklethwait and Wooldridge fail to pursue this thesis. Instead, their book lapses into a rather sterile historical description.

The authors, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, have squeezed 5,000 years of business history into The Company (A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea), the newest addition to the important series, Modern Library Chronicles. I approached this particular edition was some trepidation as the subject matter seemed a little dry (there is, after all, a chapter called "The Triumph of Managerial Capitalism".) The book is more interesting than expected and is written with some humour as well as a certain amount of patience for the less business informed reader. The strong caveat, though, is that the authors do stress the triumph of the company in creating everything that is good in the world, making their case less often then I suspect they wanted to. They are honest about the bad, such as the Belgian Congo and Enron, but try to make clear that positives exist with enormous negatives. Trying to find a positive in the holocaust of the Congo is not, in fact, possible but the authors cheerfully give it a shot. Despite their obvious boosterism, this is an interesting book and a worthwhile introduction to one side of an argument.

Here we have an examination of what seems to be, at first glance, a less-than-exciting subject: the limited-liability joint-stock company. Ah, but that first impression is soon proven false by what indeed is a fascinating, at times riveting (albeit brief) history of what Micklethwait and Wooldridge correctly suggest has been and remains, since the Companies Act of 1862, "the basis of the prosperity of the West and the best hope for the future of the world." Soon becoming the single most powerful economic power, the limited-liability joint-stock company combined the three big ideas behind the modern company: "that it could be an artificial person," with the same ability to do business as a real person; that it could issue tradable shares to any number of investors; and that those investors could have limited liability (so they could lose only the money they had committed to the firm)."

Although Micklethwait and Wooldridge do indeed provide "a short history of a revolutionary idea," their book is remarkably comprehensive as it traces the evolution of commercial structure from merchants and monopolists (3000 B.C. -- 1500) through imperialists and speculators (1500-1750) and the "prolonged and painful birth" of the limited-liability joint-stock company (1750-1862) before shifting their and the reader's attention to the rise of big business in America (1862-1913), the rise of big business in Britain, Germany, and Japan (1850-1950), the triumph of managerial capitalism (1913-1975), and what they characterize as "the corporate paradox" (1975-2002) before examining "agents of influence: multinationals (1850-2002) in the final chapter. All this, and done very well indeed, in less than 200 pages! For those interested in further study of any/all of the periods and subjects they discuss, Micklethwait and Wooldridge provide an exceptionally informative "Bibliographic Note" section, followed by all of the footnotes in which additional recommendations are included.

Congratulations to Micklethwait and Wooldridge on what I consider to be a brilliant achievement, one which combines scholarship of the highest order with narrative skills worthy of Austen, Thackeray, and Dickens.

Since globalization is inevitably changing or affecting everyone's life and shaping our future, an open dialogue is crucial on how to ease the painful process of transformation and help people handle their new freedom and responsibility. But a dialogue will only be feasible if people stop to paint black and white and put themselves in the other parties position - on the one hand the cosmocratic elite that has no time left for politics since its members spend their busy lives in worldwide economic networks and, on the other hand, people who live in local communities and don't understand world economics.

By showing both sides, A Future Perfect can help people to understand other involved parties or at least encourage them to cross limited horizons, thereby fostering objective discussions about our mutual future.

The authors cite interesting examples and base their arguments on economic theories without turning to a business language that might be hard to understand for a non-MBA reader. It's not a book that will teach you all you have to know about globalization or offer the magic bullet but it allows you to understand the forces (technology, capital & management) that drive globalization and why the term globalization is a welcome scapegoat for mismanagement, regulation and corrupt politicians.

Okay, if you want a book with lots of anecdotes and quotations that try to prove that globalization is this uncontrollable process that must be accepted on its terms by individuals and governments, read Tom Friedman's "Lexus and Olive Tree" . If you want a more nuanced view, and a more critical examination of different aspects of globalization, read this book by Micklethwait and Aldridge.

"Future Perfect" also has lots of anecdotes , but somehow it feels like these anecdotes fit into an intelligent discussion, rather than being part of some breathless voyage of discovery like in Friedman's book.

Another difference is in coining of new terms. Friedman has a tedious list of terms like DOSKapital, glocalism etc . Micklethwait and ALdridge also coin terms. But more often they borrow refreshing terms from other authors and thinkers - and the result is much better. This also means that these authors are able to draw on the history of ideas , especially since the Enlightenment. And they do so by making these ideas extremely germane to the current discussion.

For instance, one of the great examples in the book is that of John Maynard Keynes who went from being an unmitigated free-trader to a proponent of protectionism and back to free trade again. This short but brilliant biographical sketch helps illustrate how fickle the world of ideas can sometimes be, and how the pendulum can swing in the other direction. This is to remind the "inevitability" school of thought that politics and local issues matter a LOT. Technological determinism is but a small part of the story. Globalization is not irreversible. Globalization appeared irreversible earlier too, and it was reversed quite easily by protectionst barriers and World Wars.

Also Micklethwait and Aldridge are too wise to indulge in the kind of exaggerated dramatization Tom Friedman indulges in. For instance, based on Intel's reluctance to enter France because of its restrictions on encryption technology, Friedman rushes to say - If France were a stock , I'd sell it. I am sure that if Micklethwait had dealt with the same question, he would have reached the more correct conclusion - yes, Intel's aversion to France is a problem for France, but not as big a problem as the technological determinists would have it.

This book examines almost every aspect of globalization critically. Is electronics responsible for the volatility of short-term capital? Yes and no. Is geography irrelevant in the global world? Yes and no. Is American culture really riding roughshod over local concerns? Yes and no. Is it really a winner-take-all world? Yes and no. And so on.....

Ultimately , for good understanding , you have to quantify, no matter how imprecisely. How interconnected are we really through trade? If Asia vanishes overnight, what effect will it have on the US economy? Once you start asking these questions, you reach a nuanced and mature understanding. Yes, trade as a share of GDP is rising. Yes, more globalization should mean more worldwide specialization and exchange, that is , more trade. Still there are important limits to this process, and domestic economies will remain extremely large. This book engages in this type of illuminating analysis , and does not rely on mere storytelling.

The book also spends lot of time addressing the critics and the sceptics of the globalization process. This is in contrast to Tom Friedman's book where his only (facetious)answer is something like - "Okay, the electronic herd is coming, if you don't heed its demands, you'll pay a heavy price".In this book, inequality, rich nations versus poor, shortterm capital flow versus capital controls, cultural hegemony versus cultural plurlaism - these are issues that are discussed in wonderfully more sophisticated fashion. The sceptics are met head on. Intelligent scepticism is countered. Stupid scepticism is dismissed. The authors offer their own answers and solutions, but they are wise enough to discuss all the caveats.

Also I haven't been able to spot any glaring mistakes in analysis in this book. As opposed to Tom Friedman's book, where he sometimes hopelessly mixes up chains of reasoning. For instance, Tom Friedman's book makes a weird connection between the winner-take-all phenomenon , and the fact that real incomes at the bottom are falling. Surely, technological change , and the resulting fall in demand for unskilled labor, is the strongest causal factor behind the falling wages. The winner-takes-all phenomenon can at best be a secondary factor. Micklethwait's book doesn't suffer from these kinds of bloopers.

Ultimately a good book, a complete book as far as coverage of topics go, and also entertaining reading.This may be the best book in its genre.... After reading this book , I am now terribly eager to read their earlier book about "Witch Doctors" .

The main point of this book - with which I fully agree - is that globalization is hardly a new phenomenon. Most, if not even more, aspects of the current globalization also existed a century ago. Indeed, you might be forgiven for thinking that the free movement of people - emigration - in the world was arguably more global then than it is now. So the process is not new but it feels new, Why?. For starters it's only been slightly over ten years since the fall of Communism and the unfettered resurgence of the free market as the unquestionably dominant economic ideology. Nontheless, the process also feels new because most of us are still reluctant to concede authority to extranational bodies and institutions while national politics still operates in self contained systems. The main point is this, and it is my principal compalint about globalization, international or global power is still mostly limited to the financial markets and multinational corporations and less to supranational bodies like the EU. meanwhile, as we are ever in search of the best product and brand there is the job insecurity that results Fiom greater foreign competition and the cultural hegemony of the United States.