The Ultimate Strategy Library: The 50 Most Influential Strategic Ideas of All Time (The Ultimate Series) (Paperback)

by John Middleton (Author)
Key Phrases: futurize your enterprise, funky business, invisible continent, New York, Harvard Business Review, Michael Porter (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The Ultimate Strategy Library featuring:
IGOR ANSOFF, Corporate Strategy, 1965
SHONA BROWN & KATHLEEN EISENHARDT, Competing on the Edge, 1998
STAN DAVIS AND CHRISTOPHER MEYER, Blur, 1998
LARRY DOWNES & CHUNKA MUI, Unleashing the Killer App, 1998
PETER DRUCKER, The Age of Discontinuity, 1969
SUMANTRA GHOSHAL & CHRISTOPHER A BARTLETT, The Individualised Corporation, 2000
MICHAEL GOOLD, ANDREW CAMPBELL & MARCUS ALEXANDER, Corporate-Level Strategy, 1994
ANDREW GROVE, Only the Paranoid Survive, 1996
GARY HAMEL & C K PRAHALAD, Competing for the Future, 1994
ROBERT S KAPLAN & DAVID P NORTON, The Balanced Scorecard, 1996
NICOLO MACHIAVELLI, The Prince, 1513
REGIS MCKENNA, Real Time, 1997
MARY MODAHL, Now or Never, 2000
GEOFFREY MOORE, Crossing the Chasm, 1991
RICHARD PASCALE, Managing on the Edge, 1990
TOM PETERS AND ROBERT WATERMAN, In Search of Excellence, 1982
MICHAEL PORTER, Competitive Strategy, 1980
JONAS RIDDERSTRÅLE & KJELL NORDSTRÖM, Funky Business, 2000
PETER SENGE, The Fifth Discipline, 1990
CARL SHAPIRO & HAL R VARION, Information Rules, 1998
THOMAS STEWART, Intellectual Capital, 1997
ALVIN TOFFLER, The Third Wave, 1980
SUN TZU, The Art of War, 500BC
WATTS WACKER & JIM TAYLOR, The 500 Year Delta, 1997
WALT WRISTON, Twilight of Sovereignty, 1992
SHOSHANA ZUBOFF, In the Age of the Smart Machine, 1988

From the Inside Flap
Despite the widespread use of universal tonics such as total quality management and business process reengineering, strategy is still at the centre of management debate. Strategy is one of the most frequently referred to subject in business. It continues to excite, frustrate and intrigue us.

From Peter Drucker and Henry Mintzberg to Nicolo Machiavelli and Kenichi Ohmae, John Middleton brings together the greatest and most influential thinkers and experts on strategy in one place. The Ultimate Book of Strategy contains a unique summary of 50 books, articles and thinkers that have had the most significant impact on the subject of ‘strategy together with an assessment of their impact and lasting value for todays business.

For ease of reference, the books featured are presented in alphabetical order by author. In addition, there is an extensive annotated bibliography of another 50 books at the back of the book, as well as a glossary of key strategy terms, and a guide to further sources of information for those wishing to delve deeper.

Thousands of new books, reports, theories and consultancy products pour into the market. So how do you keep up with what works and what doesnt? With whos hot and whos not? The ideas and people that are going to help you drive your business forward? The completely updated and revised Ultimates from Capstone are part of the new Capstone Reference series and have proved indispensable by providing time-poor executives with authoritative and up-to-date information in a completely accessible style.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Capstone; annotated edition edition (March 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841121800
• ISBN-13: 978-1841121802
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #388,060 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Where are we now, where do we want to go, and how do we get there?", May 25, 2007

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is one of the volumes in the "The Ultimate Series" published by Capstone Publishing Limited. Previously, I reviewed Des Dearlove's The Ultimate Book of Business Thinking and Stuart Crainer's The Ultimate Business Library. The three volumes comprise an especially informative and valuable resource for busy executives as well as for those now preparing for a business career. The nature and extent of coverage of "the most strategic ideas of all time" and of the sources in which they were introduced are remarkable. For example, during the course of a 192-page narrative, John Middleton provides a briefing on a total of 50 primary sources, arranged by author in alphabetical order (from Igor Ansoff to Shoshana Zuboff) but Middleton also offers other material that, all by itself, is worth far more than the cost of this book:

"Introduction" [Note: One of the most informative I have encountered thus far.]

"A Brief History of Strategy" which includes a comprehensive timeline that begins with the pre-history of strategy (e.g. Sun Tzu's The Art of War), proceeds through a four-decade period from 1960, and concludes with six works published in 2000. Middleton also identifies a number of key themes.

[Sequence of analyses of "the most strategic ideas of all time" and those who devised them, Pages 3-192]

"Coda: The Future of Strategy"
Annotated Bibliography
Glossary of Strategy Terms

I like the various reader-friendly devices that Middleton uses so effectively throughout his narrative such as highlights of key points (e.g. Robert Baldrock's in The Last Days of the Giants?), brief excerpts (e.g. from Michael Hammer and James Champy's Reengineering the Corporation), "Zeitbites" (e.g. taken from Kenichi Ohmae's The Mind of the Strategist), summaries of key components within a methodology (e.g. Peter Senge's as developed in The Fifth Discipline and The Dance of Change), and "nuggets of wisdom" (e.g. from Sun Tzu's The Art of War). These and other reader-friendly devices energize what would otherwise be a solid but somewhat ponderous narrative.

To sum up, Middleton offers 50 different responses to an especially important three-part business question: "Where are we now, where do we want to go, and how do we get there?"

Those who share my regard for this book are urged to check the other two volumes in the "The Ultimate Series. " To supplement the sources that Middleton recommends for further reading on the subject of strategy, I presume to add Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution co-authored by Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson as well as Dean R. Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement: Rethinking the Way We Measure and Drive Organizational Success, Lawrence Hrebiniak's Making Strategy Work: Leading Effective Execution and Change, Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris' Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning, and Jack Alexander's Performance Dashboards and Analysis for Value Creation.

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent pointers vector, October 16, 2008

By	Sfondrini Cesare "CS" (Milan Italy) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

An excellent book to start with if you want a general overview of strategic thinking (2-3 pages for every book -- in total 50 books commented).

Obviously if you really want to understand what the authors exacly wrote and the reasoning/argument behind their theories you must read the original books.

Anyway an excellent tool to have a valid list to choose your next strategy book and to save money avoiding ...avoidable purchases.