Business History

The twentieth century was the managerial century in the United States. An organizational transformation, from entrepreneurial to managerial capitalism, brought forth what became a dominant narrative: that administrative coordination by trained professional managers is essential to the efficient running of organizations both public and private. And yet if managerialism was the apotheosis of administrative efficiency, why did both its practice and the accompanying narrative lie in ruins by the end of the century?

America’s first great organized-crime lord was a lady—a nice Jewish mother named Mrs. Mandelbaum. “A tour de force . . . With a pickpocket’s finesse, Margalit Fox lures us into the criminal underworld of Gilded Age New York.”—Liza Mundy, author of The Sisterhood A PARADE BEST BOOK OF...

Bestselling author of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures, cultural critic Peter Biskind turns his eye toward the new golden age of television, sparked by the fall of play-it-safe network TV and the rise of boundary-busting cable, followed by streaming, which overturned...

Set in California's lush Napa Valley and spanning four generations of a talented and visionary family, The House of Mondavi is a tale of genius, sibling rivalry, and betrayal. From 1906, when Italian immigrant Cesare Mondavi passed through Ellis Island, to the Robert Mondavi Corporation's 21st-century battle over a billion-dollar fortune, award-winning journalist Julia Flynn Siler brings to life both the place and the people in this riveting family drama.

The definitive oral history of the 1967 novel for teens, turned blockbuster film turned Tony-winning musical, and commemorated with a newly opened museum. This groundbreaking story has managed to stay gold for nearly sixty years. *Includes interviews with Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas...

From an award-winning journalist comes this real-life cloak-and-dagger tale of Vera Atkins, one of Britain’s premiere secret agents during World War II. As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special...

“A guide for those who dare to challenge the status quo and create spaces of equity and opportunity.” —Serena Williams Leadership insights from one of history’s most influential voices. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated more than 55 years ago, yet his words continue to inspire...

The high-energy tale of how two socially awkward Ivy Leaguers, trying to increase their chances with the opposite sex, ended up creating Facebook. Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were Harvard undergraduates and best friends–outsiders at a school filled with polished prep-school grads and...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The inside story of the Houston Astros, whose relentless innovation took them from the worst team in baseball to the World Series in 2017 and 2019 “Reiter’s superb narrative of how the team got there provides powerful insights into how organizations—not...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER 2022 Winner of the Golden Poppy Award for Nonfiction (California Independent Booksellers Alliance) A revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications, exploring the decline of California’s largest utility company that led to countless wildfires — including the one...

The rise, fall, and revival of the Caesar of Silicon Valley. Elon Musk has cast himself as the savior of humanity, an altruistic force whose fortune is tied to noble pursuits from halting our dependence on fossil fuels to colonizing Mars. Once frequently heralded as a modern-day Edison, Musk has...

Dealers of Lightning is the riveting story of the legendary Xerox PARC'a collection of eccentric young inventors brought together by Xerox Corporation at a facility in Palo Alto, California, during the mind-blowing intellectual ferment of the seventies and eighties. Here for the first time is...

Why is it so expensive to be a woman in America? From a rising star in economics comes the first comprehensive look at the costs women face and why the bill runs especially high for women of color—with a foreword by Chelsea Clinton. The “pink tax” has gained widespread recognition in...

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!! Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Amazon, and The Washington Post A Wired Must-Read Book of Summer “Gretchen McCulloch is the internet’s favorite linguist, and this book is essential reading. Reading her work is like suddenly being able to see the...

Born over 2,400 years ago, warrior, thinker, and leader Sun Tzu lived during a time of great internecine conflict in China. A classic of Chinese literature, Art of War reveals the strategies, tactics, and insights that lead to success. Mastery of warfare and the maintenance of power are the most important values in Sun's philosophy, without which there can be no peace or life.

This riveting biography from the American Bar Association visits the spectacular life of Edwin Land, breakthrough inventor. At the time of his death, he stood third on the list of our most prolific inventors, behind only Thomas Edison and one of Edison's colleagues. Land's most famous achievement was the creation of a revolutionary film-and-camera system that could produce a photographic print moments after the picture was taken.

The dramatic, unlikely story behind the founding of Twitter, by New York Times bestselling author and Vanity Fair special correspondent The San Francisco-based technology company Twitter has become a powerful force in less than ten years. Today it’s everything from a tool for fighting...

A grand and revelatory portrait of Wall Street’s most storied investment bank Wall Street investment banks move trillions of dollars a year, make billions in fees, pay their executives in the tens of millions of dollars. But even among the most powerful firms, Lazard Frères & Co. stood...

A guide to the 10 power moves that have built Taylor Swift’s superstardom and empire, from a former Strategist at Harvard Business School’s Institute for Strategy Taylor Swift’s genius is not limited to her singing and songcraft: as the founder of her own multi-billion dollar...

How a Michigan farm boy became the richest man in America is a classic, almost mythic tale, but never before has Henry Ford’s outsized genius been brought to life so vividly as it is in this engaging and superbly researched biography. The real Henry Ford was a tangle of contradictions. He set...