In the 1970s a course on investing at Harvard Business School was nicknamed "Darkness at noon", because it was held in a basement at lunchtime and badly attended. By the mid-1990s the classes on finance were jammed with wannabe masters of the universe. That telling contrast is among the many illuminating snapshots of the past in Nicholas Lemann's ambitious new book on corporate America. Even in the headquarters of capitalism, Mr Lemann reveals, attitudes to business have oscillated wildly, both in boardrooms and on Wall Street. His book is an unusual addition to a growing canon that seeks to explain why, for many ordinary people, the American Dream has come to seem out of reach. Rather than focusing on macroeco-nomic factors such as growth, productivity or unemployment, in "Transaction Man" Mr Lemann dwells on how companies are run. Its publication is timely, given the recent statement by the Business Round-table, a group of bosses, that firms should be run for all stakeholders, not just shareholders. But for all its rich reporting and panache, it lacks rigour.
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