The world according to Peter Drucker

by Jack Beatty

The World According to Peter Drucker is the first biography and concise intellectual portrait of one of the twentieth century's great minds - "the greatest thinker management theory has produced," in the words of The Economist. Written with Drucker's full cooperation, the book ranges over six decades of Drucker's work from his early antifascist writings to his very latest books. The reader learns the inside story of why Drucker's classic study of General Motors, Concept of the Corporation, was scorned by GM's storied chairman, Alfred P. Sloan; watches over Drucker's shoulder as he virtually invents management and management theory; and notes the recurring paradox of Drucker's career: the "man who invented the corporate society" has been a sometimes sulphuric critic of capitalist excess. Indeed, Drucker, the author writes, should be seen as "a moralist of our business civilization."