The Puritan Gift
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"One of most important books of the past decade".
Financial Times - 2010
THE PURITAN GIFTtraces the origins and characteristics of an American managerial culture which, over the course of three centuries, turned a handful of small colonies into the greatest economic and political power on earth. It argues that the energy, social mobility, competitiveness and capacity for innovation, all of which lie at the heart of that culture, have their origins in the discipline and ethos of America’s first wave of European immigrants: the Puritans.
Drawing lessons from their own extensive experience, the authors warn that, as America distances itself from the core values which underlay its commercial and economic success during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it puts its own future prosperity and security at risk.
The book also explores how American managerial culture has spread throughout the world. In particular it examines the impact of the US occupation of Japan on the social and manufacturing mores of that country and explains how America’s inherited style of management interacted with Japanese traditions.
This is an original exploration of the dramatic and far-reaching consequences of the Puritans’ ‘gift’ to America – the ethos which produced the early success of America and what came to be known as the American dream.
Drucker Institute Writer-in-Residence, Will Hopper, explains the meaning of "domain knowledge" (a phrase launched by Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO of General Electric) and emphasises that management is a "craft" to be learned "on the job" under the supervision of a master. This Cartoon, which lasts 3.5 minutes, is based on a talk given at the Drucker Centennial event in 2009 in Claremont CA.
On Thursday, June 23rd 2011, we celebrated the creation of the Kenneth Hopper Archives on Management at the Drucker Institute in Claremont, CA. |

Watch William Hopper, (one of the THE PURITAN GIFT authors) introduce the book and the thinking behind it.
What readers think...
"This astonishing book about American managerial culture …I’ve never read a business book that packed so much information, history, and insight into one compact volume."
- Harvard Business Review, Senior Editor Sarah Cliffe