Overview

Over the course of the 20th century the popular perception of America's giant corporations has undergone a transition. Condemned as dangerous leviathans in the century's first decades, by 1945 major corporations had become respected institutions. This book examines how large companies such as AT&T and US Steel created their own ""souls"" in order to reassure consumers and politicians that big business posed no threat to democracy or American values. The author traces this transformation in the culture of capitalism by offering a series of case studies of companies such as General Motors, General Electric, Metropolitan Life Insurance and Du Pont Chemicals. The imagery developed by corporations to win public approval is examined, along with the building of internal corporate culture and the image of large corporations as a ""good neighbour"", enveloping a complex economic relationship in the comforting aura of familiarity.

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9780520226883

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Creating the Corporate Soul [is] thorougly researched and beautifully illustrated. . . . [Marchand's] tone of almost magisterial objectivity seems just right for a subject that would wither from either sarcasm or enthusiasm. . . . His conclusion is well earned: big busness may not have found a soul but it found a reasonably social facsimile of one. -- New York Times Book Review

"""Creating the Corporate Soul [is] thorougly researched and beautifully illustrated. . . . [Marchand's] tone of almost magisterial objectivity seems just right for a subject that would wither from either sarcasm or enthusiasm. . . . His conclusion is well earned: big busness may not have found a soul but it found a reasonably social facsimile of one.""--""New York Times Book Review"

Author Information

Roland Marchand (1933-1997) was Professor of History at the University of California, Davis, and authored numerous works on American cultural history.

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