Home Page

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

• On Sunday August 10, 2008, at 06.05 and 23.30 hours British Summer Time, BBC Radio 4 broadcasted a half-hour programme entitled THE PURITAN GIFT in which Sir Mark Tully interviewed Will Hopper, co-author of the book of that name.
• On Tuesday August 5, 2008, as a tribute to the quality of the scholarship demonstrated by them in writing THE PURITAN GIFT, Kenneth and William Hopper were appointed Visiting Fellows in Manchester Business School.
• On Tuesday July 15, 2008 Will Hopper was interviewed by Lesley Curwen in the BBC’s World Business Report. Lesley introduced him as ‘the author of THE PURITAN GIFT, which predicted problems ahead for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’. Click for podcast (mp3 format, 22 mins, 11 MB) >>
• On Saturday July 5, 2008, Kenneth Hopper presented 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’. at the University of Birmingham, England. His paper reflected the contents of chapter 10 of THE PURITAN GIFT: ‘Three Wise Men from the West go to Japan’ (see Book Excerpts).
• June 2008: THE PURITAN GIFT weblog goes online >>

Zeale is but a wilde-fire
without knowledge.
Rev. John Cotton,
Boston, Massachusetts (1651)

There is no substitute
for knowledge.
W. Edwards Deming,
Washington DC (1993)

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