The World According to Peter Drucker - Softcover

Beatty, Jack

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0767903021 ISBN 13: 9780767903028

Publisher: Crown, 1998

Synopsis

Peter Drucker is arguably the most influential architect of today's corporate society. Yet no concise overview of his life and work has ever appeared--until now. Creating a Drucker primer as much as a biography, Jack Beatty has distilled the essence of Drucker's beliefs and strategies into one engaging volume. Spanning Drucker's childhood in Vienna during the first world war, through his first American teaching jobs when raging factions debated the best form of government (if any), to his immersion in modern management theory using General Motors as a model, and finally, to the era of downsizing facing his Fortune 500 clients, The World According to Peter Drucker also captures our own corporate evolution in this century.

About this title

Review:

Over a remarkable 60-year career, Peter Drucker has written the book on management theory, executive advice, and various aspects of social and political thought. He's also penned a monthly editorial-page column for the Wall Street Journal, contributed to publications ranging from The Economist and the Harvard Business Review to Forbes and Esquire, taught at several major universities, lectured worldwide by satellite, consulted for leading global corporations, and still found time to write two novels. His impact on individual and corporate philosophy has truly been astounding, so much so that it's often difficult to grasp its full scope. Jack Beatty's The World According to Peter Drucker is up to the task, however, offering a satisfying examination of his ongoing legacy for followers as well as a great introduction to specific works for neophytes.

With Drucker's full cooperation and assistance, Beatty (an NPR commentator and Atlantic Monthly senior editor) mixes bits of previous interviews and passages from his subject's voluminous writings with personal analysis to explore the range of his always provocative views on business, government, nonprofits, and the future. Beginning with the experiences in Europe during World War I that ultimately shaped Drucker as a writer, Beatty looks into themes like fascism, freedom, decentralization, and bureaucracy while tracing the transformation of Drucker from political scientist to management theorist. In combination with other particularly interesting observations, like those on Drucker's prescient prediction of a "new world economy" and his defining conceptualization of both privatization and "knowledge workers," the book serves to whet one's appetite for a bigger helping of the master's works--many of which, fortunately, remain in print. --Howard Rothman

About the Author:

Jack Beatty is a senior editor of The Atlantic and news analyst for On Point, the national NPR news and public affairs program. His book The Rascal King, on legendary Boston mayor James Michael Curley, won an American Book Award, was shortlisted for the NBCC award, and was one of USA Today's 10 Best Books of the Year. He was the editor of Colossus, a book on corporations, which was named one of the 10 Best Business Books of the Year by Business Week. He was a Poynter Fellow at Yale, the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Alfred P. Sloan Foundation research grants, a William Allen White Award for Criticism, and shared an Olive Branch Award for an Atlantic article on arms control. He lectures frequently throughout the country.

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0767903021
• ISBN 13: 9780767903028
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220