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by Kenneth Hopper
and William Hopper

Where does the Protestant work ethic come from? And how did America achieve such dominance in management for so long?

'THE PURITAN GIFT - Triumph, Collapse and Revival of an American Dream' sets out to answer these questions and many others arising from them.   Read More >>

N E W S   F L A S H E S

• July 4 – 5, 2008, University of Birmingham, England: Kenneth Hopper will present a paper on the work of the Civil Communications Section of General MacArthur’s command in Tokyo (1945- 1952) to the Association of Business Historians 2008 conference on ‘Business History after Alfred Chandler’. His paper will reflect the contents of chapter 10 of THE PURITAN GIFT: ‘Three Wise Men from the West go to Japan’. Chandler was America’s greatest business historian.
• March 11, 2008: Will Hopper lectured on How Religion shaped American Managerial Culture to the Turkish Islamic Dialogue Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
  - Invitation from the Dialogue Society
• BBC HARDtalk, January 16, 2008: Stephen Sackur interviews William Hopper:
  - video of edited version of interview
    (7 minutes)
  - video of full interview
    (23 minutes, requires real player)
  - brief description of broadcast (pdf)
  - edited transcription of broadcast (pdf)
• According to Stephen Evans, of the BBC World Service’s Business Daily Program, THE PURITAN GIFT is a ‘must read of the year 2007’. (January 1, 2008)
• On December 8, 2007 The Financial Times selected THE PURITAN GIFT as one of the Ten Best Business Books of 2007. See this and other reviews >>
• On September 20, 2007 in a 1,200-word Financial Times review, Richard Donkin declares that THE PURITAN GIFT is ‘a real book, full of fascinating insights, intellectual rigour and challenging authoritative arguments’. Read this and other reviews >>
• The BBC’s Stephen Evans declares that THE PURITAN GIFT ‘foretold’ the current global credit crisis. Listen to his interview with Will Hopper on the Business Daily Program, September 19, 2007. (mp3, 1 MB)
• Manchester Business School blog discusses THE PURITAN GIFT >>

Zeale is but a wilde-fire
without knowledge.

Rev. John Cotton,
Boston, Massachusetts (1651)

Far too many people ...
believe that being bright
is a substitute for knowledge.

Peter F. Drucker,
Boston, Massachusetts (1999)

C A R T O O N

'Pepper and Salt' cartoon by Sauer,
Wall Street Journal (2001)
- click for caption