Here is a who’s who of business, thirty-one profiles of inventors, financiers, organizers, motivators, and gurus–a vivid, informative look at the history of management as seen through the lives of its most influential figures.

We meet Eli Whitney, creator of the cotton gin and father of the machine tool industry, who failed to profit from his genius; Thomas Edison, who once vowed he would never invent anything he couldn’t sell; and Andrew Carnegie, who applied the railroad management system to the steel industry, with spectacular results. There are profiles of such railroad giants as James J. Hill and Edward H. Harriman, and colorful portraits of Samuel Morse and Graham Bell, the two men who launched the communications industry in the U.S. The great innovators of management and organization are here as well, including the founders of systematic management, Frederick W. Taylor and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. There’s an intriguing side-by-side look at William C. Durant, builder of General Motors, a visionary but a weak manager and organizer, and Alfred P. Sloan, who gave GM the structure it needed, and provided the model for all large, multiproduct firms to come. And there are thought-provoking profiles of motivational experts Elton Mayo and Abraham Maslow; quality advocates W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Moses Juran; Taiichi Ohno, inventor of just-in-time manufacturing; and finally, Peter Drucker, the most influential management thinker of our time.

This is the distilled essence of management genius, a stimulating and, at times, inspiring look at the pioneers who shaped how we do business today.