The survey of the field of management begins with Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, who failed to create a successful business based on it, and ends with Peter Drucker, who is probably the most respected management thinker in America today, but who has never run a business. Each chapter of the book is devoted to a specific figure and describes not only that person's contribution to the field, but explores the wider social context in which the person lived and worked. Figures explored include: Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Richard W. Sears, Alexander Graham Bell, J. Pierpont Morgan, Frederick W. Taylor, Alfred P. Sloan, and W. Edwards Deming.