This book is nothing less than a revolutionary re-examination of management history, subverting the standard interpretation of modern Western management by going back to source material and the historical context to demonstrate how more modern, heavily biased actors subverted that history to further their own ends. While some big names are of course analyzed, I also was fascinated learning about the extremely recent conception of corporate culture and how much Japanese ascendency in the 1980s flipped the narrative from the importance of a diverse, decentralized culture to the benefits of a centralized, unitary one. As an aside, I think there are more Foucault references in this book than in every other management book/paper I've ever read put together. You also have to love a book that references the management wisdom of C. Montgomery Burns. Highly recommend