The ultimate business library Book

This is the third edition of one of the volumes in the "The Ultimate Series" published by Capstone Publishing Limited. The three volumes comprise an especially informative and valuable resource for busy executives as well as those now preparing for a business career. The brevity of coverage of individuals and individual books is inevitable, given the scope of each volume. For example, during the course of a 301-page narrative, Stuart Crainer provides a briefing on a total of 85 of "the greatest books that made management." They are arranged by author in alphabetical order but Crainer also offers a series of time-specific clusters that range from "Management prehistory" (e.g. Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations) to "The nineties" (e.g. James Collins and Jerry Porras' Built to Last and Thomas Stewart's Intellectual Capital). The last works Crainer discusses were first published in 1998: Don Tapscott's Growing Up Digital and Patricia Seybold's Customers.com.

I like the format Crainer chose for each of the 80 commentaries. First, he provides a mini-bio of the given author, then a brief discussion of her or his "classic" book, followed by a few notes. In the Bibliography that follows the last commentary (devoted to William H. Whyte and his Organization Man), Crainer lists all of each author's major works. Many readers will appreciate being introduced to certain works with which they may not have previously been familiar. For example, Frank Gilbreth's Motion Study (1911), Chester Barnard's The Functions of the Executive (1938), Frederick Herzberg's The Motivation at Work (1959), Marvin Bower's The Will to Manage (1966), Teach Ohno's Toyota's Production System (1978), Joseph M. Juran's Planning for Quality (1988). To paraphrase Bernard Chartres, they are among the "giants" upon whose shoulders so many more renowned business thinkers have since stood.