The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business

alfred d. chandler jr.

The role of large-scale business enterprise―big business and its managers―during the formative years of modern capitalism (from the 1850s until the 1920s) is delineated in this pathmarking book. Alfred Chandler, Jr., the distinguished business historian, sets forth the reasons for the dominance of big business in American transportation, communications, and the central sectors of production and distribution.

The managerial revolution, presented here with force and conviction, is the story of how the visible hand of management replaced what Adam Smith called the “invisible hand” of market forces. Chandler shows that the fundamental shift toward managers running large enterprises exerted a far greater influence in determining size and concentration in American industry than other factors so often cited as the quality of entrepreneurship, the availability of capital, or public policy.

Genres historybusinesseconomicsnonfictionmanagementamerican historyfinancephilosophypoliticsbuisness

624 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1977

Literary awards

pulitzer prize, bancroft prize,

This edition

Format: 624 pages, Paperback
Published: January 1, 1977 by Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674940529
ASIN: 0674940520
Language: English

About the author

alfred d. chandler jr.

Alfred DuPont Chandler, Jr. was a professor of business history at Harvard Business School and Johns Hopkins University. Called "the Herodotus of business history," he wrote extensively about the scale and the management structures of modern corporations. His works redefined business and economic history of industrialization.