World According to Peter Drucker [Paperback]

Jack Beatty (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 29, 1998

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com 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

From Library Journal

For more than 50 years, prolific thinker Drucker (Managing in a Time of Great Change, LJ 10/15/95) has studied business organizations. Among his many accomplishments, he is credited with starting the discipline of management. Beatty, a senior editor at the Atlantic Monthly, a frequent venue for Drucker's writings, evaluates Drucker's thought through a chronological review of his major books. Beatty clearly admires much of Drucker's insight and prescience, but he does not let that blind him to his subject's occasional missteps in interpretation or fact. At times he veers beyond a discussion of management into the dismal science of economics, yet the writing is still clear and understandable from the high school level on up. This is the first book on Drucker in ten years and a good survey of a major late 20th-century thinker. Although he is not now as well known as certain more faddish management gurus, there is more substance here. Recommended for circulating collections in public libraries and strongly recommended for two-year and other academic libraries.?Patrick J. Brunet, Western Wisconsin Technical Coll. Lib., La Crosse
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (December 29, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767903021
• ISBN-13: 978-0767903028
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,547,634 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Vivid Intellectual Portrait, January 6, 2000

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The World According to Peter Drucker (Hardcover)

Jack Beatty creates what he calls an "intellectual portrait" of the world's most highly respected business scholar and teacher. What soon becomes clear, however, is that Drucker is a life-long learner with an insatiable curiosity about many subjects which are wholly unrelated to business per se. The book consists of nine chapters which, together, examine Drucker's multi-dimensional life since his birth in Vienna in 1909.

Correctly, Drucker has been described by Warren Bennis as "one of the few thinkers in any discipline who can claim to have changed the world: he is the inventor of privatization, the apostle of a new class of knowledge workers, the champion of management as a serious discipline." It is generally agreed that, until Drucker, the term "management" was not even in the formal nomenclature of business. Today, management consulting is a multi-billion dollar global enterprise which continues to experience ever-increasing growth. Drucker gave that enterprise a definition, a vision, and a rationale as well as many of its basic terms.

Beatty neither thinks nor writes as well as Drucker. (Who does?) His "intellectual portrait" is, however, an invaluable supplement to any of Drucker's books and articles.

For more than 60 years, Peter Drucker has made a positive and substantial difference in the personal as well as professional lives of so many others throughout the world. With all due respect to Peter Drucker's well-deserved recognition as a scholar of business, that "difference" is his most valuable contribution.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Way To Deepen Your Understanding Of Peter Drucker, January 24, 1999

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The World According to Peter Drucker (Hardcover)

Jack Beatty has taken on a very difficult task here: Capturing the essence of the world's most successful and prolific business thinker and author. I think that he succeeded very well, and certainly added to my understanding of Peter Drucker's writing. Having read many of Drucker's articles and books, I was astonished to find out how many important works I had missed. I appreciate having Jack Beatty open my eyes. In the year since I first read this book, I have read more Drucker than in the last 20 years. This has been a good benefit from THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PETER DRUCKER. I am one of the people mentioned in the book, during the chapter about Professor Drucker's consulting practice, and I found Mr. Beatty has really captured the essence of the man in a way that no other books or articles do. I salute Jack Beatty for having made a great gift to us all, and urge you to buy, read, and use the book to guide your study of Peter Drucker.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Go to the source, November 24, 1999

By 

Brian McLean - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World According to Peter Drucker (Hardcover)

Anyone familiar with Peter Drucker's writings will probably be disappointed with this book. Drucker is a better and more provocative writer. Anyone not familiar with Drucker's writings probably won't appreciate the Drucker "world" and might even be deterred from reading Drucker himself, which would be a shame. The best part of the book discusses Drucker's relationship with Albert Sloan Jr. at GM. The worst part of the book has to be the irritating manner in which Beatty incorporates quotes and fragments from Drucker's writings. At times, Beatty's only contributions seem to be a horde of "ands," ubiquitous ellipses, and trite summations.