Customer Reviews

The Puritan Gift: Reclaiming the American Dream Amidst Global Financial Chaos

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The future reform of western management will in no small part be dependent upon how carefully business leaders and academics study this remarkable book by the co-authors brothers Hopper - a unique teaming of engineering and financial minds that understand (and so ably communicate) the socio-technical forces that have shaped our commercialized society. The combined insights and experience of a life-long professional engineer and a still practicing investment banker combine in this book to cast a powerful analytical spotlight on the history of western management practice over the past 350 years. While the locus of the book is on American management cultures, the fundamental messages revealed are shown to be applicable to any culture intent on real wealth creation as opposed to mere financial engineering.

As the title suggests, this story - for this is no dry text destined for those soulless time-serving senior managers and executives intent on seeking the latest snake oil with which to lubricate their legitimized theft of shareholder funds - traces the origins of contemporary management back to the strict disciplines of the Puritan Migrants of the 1630s and their flight to America. The authors list the four abiding aspects of Puritanism which infused the managerial culture established by the descendents of those early settlers as being: 1) the purpose of life was to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth; 2) an aptitude for mechanical skills; 3) a moral outlook that subordinates the interest of the individual to the group; and, 4) an ability to gather, galvanize and marshal financial, material and human resources to a single purpose at whatever scale. More briefly put : Rectitude, Pragmatism, Teamwork and Leadership. An Appendix summarizes the quintessential of the book in a most useful listing of the authors' 25 principles underlying good practice from the Golden Age of Management (1920-1970).



The book is divided into five parts - Origins (1630-1815), Rise (1815-1920), Triumph (1920-1970), Collapse (1970-1995) and Revival (1995-2006). Throughout, the Puritan gift is described by the authors as being the underpinning of that rare ability to successfully create and manage organisations that serve a useful purpose in any sector of human activity. Throughout the authors warn that as America increasingly distances itself from these core values, which underlay its traditional commercial and economic success, it puts its own future prosperity and security at risk.



This truly remarkable book provides an original exploration of the dramatic and far-reaching consequences of the Puritans' gift to America - the ethos which produced the early success of America and what came to be known as the American dream. While the reader may feel that Frederick Taylor's efforts receive ill treatment and that Stafford Beer's contribution should not have been totally ignored, she will be encouraged to see how the authors highlight the "Cult of the (so-called) Expert" and the bluff and bluster of the MBA movement.



This reviewer, a practicing engineer, has read many management books over the past thirty years but never before one which has been so informative, so illuminating and so enjoyable. Trite as it may sound, this is essential reading for anyone aspiring to the new style of management that will be essential for productive success in the decades ahead as the eastern economies increasingly dominate world trade.

This is a great book. Whether you agree with all of it or not -- and when was the last time a thinking person agreed 100% with any book? -- it will make you think.

All the greatness of American (and world) business has been around for ages, and we just need to get back to basics, back to the roots. Any study of the great businesses and entrepreneurs teaches this lesson. The Hoppers do an excellent job of raising this idea, with plenty of great stories to support it.

It is surprising that the publishers do not get this book into bigtime US circulation. While written by Brits, it is after all a book about the rise and fall of American business and economic prestige. It should be on the "hot" table in all the US bookstores. But in order to get it quickly you have to go to amazon UK. What gives?

The Hoppers' book should be a page-turner for people interested in 20th century business. From his personal experience, Ken Hopper, an industrial consultant, has culled thousands of facts and distilled them into a package of wit and wisdom that many academics would envy. Virtually every page in the first half of the book has some new insight into how American manufacturing came to lead the world, to transform Japan (and through it, much of Asia), and go astray. While other publications have made use of his comments on salary ratios, this reviewer found his focus on the role of shop-floor leaders and problem-solvers to be an important contribution to the literature. The critique of the "B-school" mentality, while common these days, was prescient in the late 20th century. Finally, while not ignoring W E Deming's work, Hopper brings into focus the important contributions of the other engineers on the CCS team that worked under General MacArthur: Sarasohn, Protzman, and Polkinghorn. The second half of the book blends in material drawing on the in-depth experience of William Hopper, an investment banker. From this reviewer's perspective as a college instructor and retired business person, the brothers Hopper contribute a lucid, humanistic overview of American business's successes and challenges which should be of interest to the general reader as well as the specialist.

It is for very good reason The Financial Times named this one of the ten best business books of 2007. It's not unusual in these times to find morality, or the lack of the traditional type on which America was built to be more precise, at the root of Wall Street's problems. But the Hoppers find it's at the root of the problems at General Motors and other once-great manufacturing companies, NASA and so on.

In essence, while the Puritan ethic once subordinated the interests of our managers to the interests of stakeholders--or employees, customers, vendors and so on--the "cult of the (so-called) expert" as the Hoppers call it, has reversed those interests since the 1960's. While managers once humbly listened to employees close to the product, they now manage from afar by listening to financial statements.

The Hoppers skillfully trace that movement from business gurus through our companies and into the business schools they endow for future managers. They then show how each entity has its own interest in inverting the Puritan ethic. Finally, they show how to restore the ethic that made American business--and even government--the envy of the world that it once was.

Any student pursuing a MBA or manager with a MBA should hestitate to call himself or herself educated, or consider himself or herself prepared to manage, until he or she reads this irreverent and fascinating if humbling book.

"This may be the most significant book I have ever read on business management and leadership. Thanks to Dr. George Cybulski of Chicago for recommending it to me.

A key learning is the author's opinion on why publicly held organizations seem to be so short-term focused these days: senior leaders (and especially CEOs) view their customer not as the end-user of their product, but as the institutional investor that buys or sells their shares...and those two groups certainly do not have aligned requirements.

In my opinion, this book answers the question of "Why aren't more organizations using the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence a a management model?" The book describes "25 Principles Underlying Good Practice from the "Golden Age of Management" that align closely with the Core Values of Baldrige. While few of us would want to go back to the "Mad Men" days, the authors describe the focus by past leaders on product knowledge, end user customer focus, and a long-term view of the future that was more of the practice during America's "golden years" of prosperity. Was it perfect in those days? No, but this book gives a compelling story of the benefits of past practices.

But what is the Puritan Gift of the title? It is a set of characteristics that "reached back to the earliest days of...Massachusetts and still colors the outlook for most citizens of the United States:
1. a conviction that the purpose of life, however vaguely conceived, was to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, [don't be mistaken into believing that this is a religious book by this "gift"]
2. an aptitude for the exercise of mechanical skills,
3. a moral outlook that subordinated the interests of individuals to the group,
4. and an ability to assemble, galvanize, and marshal financial, material and human resources to a single purpose and on a massive, or a lesser, scale."

I highly recommend that you read this book - it will challenge your thinking, and probably give you new insight into effective management and leadership. And it will also challenge you a bit if you're a consultant (guilty!) and/or MBA (guilty!)."

After reading this book I came away with a very healthy respect for my team in the company. This book puts in perspective the swaggering MBAs vs the hardworking employees. Read this book and you will do yourself a big favor - especially if you are running a business or planning to run one. Obviously, this book stresses the good old way of building companies to last, not building them to flip. The principles are brilliantly summarized for easy assimilation. Highly recommended.

What is it that makes some countries rich, while others remain poor? If only we could identify the right elements, perhaps everyone could be rich. The United States became rich because of its managerial culture, which was built on a Puritan worldview, according to Kenneth and William Hopper in this book.

The authors say that traditional American society had four characteristics:
1. A conviction that the purpose of life, however vaguely conceived, was to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth;
2. An aptitude for the exercise of mechanical skills;
3. A moral outlook that subordinated the interests of the individual to the group; and
4. An ability to assemble, galvanise and marshal financial, material and human resources to a single purpose.

The authors say that management of major corporations in the United States reflected these virtues during the golden age of management which lasted until the early 1970s. The rate of economic growth in the US has deteriorated since the 1970s because of the advent of "professional management", consisting of people who do not have technical engineering skills and who focus on financial manipulation rather than the core technical competence of an organisation.

The authors have still not forgiven the British for the American Revolutionary War. British management practices are universally condemned, the authors conveniently omitting to mention that Great Britain became wealthy long before the US did. Australian management practices are roundly condemned on the basis of the country's British origins and the fact that Australian managers are wasting the country's resources in a spendthrift way, because the authors once read in a book that Australia, with a land area just 19% smaller than that of the US, can only manage a sustainable population of 8 million people.

Notwithstanding these idiosyncrasies, this is a very useful and thought-provoking book. It provides a useful corrective to the prevalent but mistaken belief that economic growth is fuelled by a "greed is good" mentality. While I think that the book's criticisms of modern management techniques are overstated, I think they do provide useful starting points for examining management techniques rather than just accepting them unequivocally.

While I don't agree with all of the authors' criticism, there is little question that the use of "professional management" has harmed American competitiveness.

Their best point is that where we can stand on the "shoulders of giants" we should carry forward and improve on the work of those giants, and not "reengineer" it.

Their point that American is no longer a nation of engineers also appears prescient. There is a gap in our education that is putting us at a serious disadvantage globally.

If this book is read by the right people, it should herald the end of the imperial executive and much of the theories of "scientific management" by the "so-called" expert.

This book goes to the root of some of the problems that anyone who has worked in large companies will recognize. If we had stayed with the principles outlined here, we would have more success and fewer Dilbert cartoon subjects!

If so,this book will make the case. And what's the historical link? That the puritans understood and produced integrated managers who specialized in the product line, not in the one-size fits all CEO decision method taught in b-schools, resulting in managers who parachute in from some other field with more gall than grace.
Yep the book is long, requires attention and yet rewards you with "I didn't know that" moments. Sample: Pilgrims were screw-ups on management of the voyage here (Thanksgiving is a lousy arrival time to plant crops) and therefore died out, Puritans got it right and thrived. Their "gift" to us is their genius for good management: shallow hierarchy, recognition of talent from the shop floor, managers willing to take responsibility for decisions good and bad. How novel!