Jack Beatty | Rick Rickertsen | Your Own Company | Peter Drucker

Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America
edited By Jack Beatty, Broadway Books, $30
It’s not the economy, stupid or otherwise. It’s not the pursuit of happiness or even the Internet. The most powerful force for change in America is the corporation, says The Atlantic Monthly editor Jack Beatty in this literate contemplation that examines business organizations’ role in American society, culture, and history. Here he edits essays, articles, and poems from observers of the corporation as diverse as Charles Dickens and Peter Drucker, tying all together with his own reasoned writing on topics from the bloody Homestead steel strike of 1892 to the late-20th-century military-industrial complex. It’s a venal, noble, mundane, bizarre portrait of an entity that has profoundly affected its supposed masters.

Buyout: The Insider’s Guide to Buying Your Own Company
By Rick Rickertsen with Robert E. Gunther, AMACOM, $32.95
Do you want to dream of owning a company, or do you really want to own one? Buyout expert Rick Rickertsen reveals the bare-knuckle nitty-gritty of how to make it happen.

Turn It Off:
How to Unplug from the Anytime-Anywhere Office Without Disconnecting Your Career
By Gil Gordon, Three Rivers Press, $12 (paperback)
You can turn off those cell phones and pagers, says telecommuting expert Gil Gordon. You can stop working nights and weekends. And you won’t get fired! No — really. Here’s how.