Neil Fligstein is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Director of the Center for Culture, Organization, and Politics at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. His previous books include The Transformation of Corporate Control, The Architecture of Markets, and Euroclash. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Neil Fligstein has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the historical development of large American firms. The book fills what had been a vacuum in that understanding by incorporating an explicitly institutional perspective. This perspective sheds particular light on the rise of large conglomerates in the late 1960s and the corresponding finance-driven short term outlook of top managers that has been associated with America’s declining competitiveness.