Overview

The dean of business historians continues his masterful chronicle of the transforming revolutions of the twentieth century begun in Inventing the Electronic Century. Alfred Chandler argues that only with consistent attention to research and development and an emphasis on long-term corporate strategies could firms remain successful over time. He details these processes for nearly every major chemical and pharmaceutical firm, demonstrating why some companies forged ahead while others failed. By the end of World War II, the chemical and pharmaceutical industries were transformed by the commercializing of new learning, the petrochemical and the antibiotic revolutions. But by the 1970s, chemical science was no longer providing the new learning necessary to commercialize more products, although new directions flourished in the pharmaceutical industries. In the 1980s, major drug companies, including Eli Lilly, Merck, and Schering Plough, commercialized the first biotechnology products, and as the twenty-first century began, the infrastructure of this biotechnology revolution was comparable to that of the second industrial revolution just before World War I and the information revolution of the 1960s. Shaping the Industrial Century is a major contribution to our understanding of the most dynamic industries of the modern era.

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9780674032217

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Reviews

Chandler does a remarkable job of covering the development of two industries that changed the world in the twentieth century. - John Emsley, Times Higher Education Supplement A dynamic demonstration of how strategy takes precedence over structure in determining the ongoing success or failure of an industry that has reached its mature phase. - John K. Smith, Jr., Business History Review

Author Information

Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., was Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at Harvard Business School.

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