“Marketing is the distinguishing, the unique function of Business.” – Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management, 1954
The eight books in ‘The Drucker Library,’ the new collection from
Harvard Business Review Press, aren’t exclusively about marketing. However, I think Peter Drucker would smile at the collection itself, which is a triumph of marketing and packaging.
Even though this particular ‘Drucker Library’ has been newly released during 2020 (including as an eight-book boxed set), the publisher had a collection of the same name a decade ago, with most of the same books, which had originally been published elsewhere and had gone out of print. The major differences now are shorter, snappier titles for each book; updated cover designs, and a brief, mostly uniform introduction providing some context about the collection of essays in each.
Drucker often published articles in the Harvard Business Review, many of which are included in these books. Harvard Business Review Press has published earlier titles collecting these pieces. Besides his many books, Drucker was a prolific writer for many other publications, including The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Forbes, and many more; a phenomenon I wrote about in 2016, “Peter Drucker: Freelance Writer.” The following year I wrote about the importance of another title in the new collection: “35 Years On: Revisiting Peter Drucker’s The Changing World of the Executive.” (The latter book, in the new collection, is called Peter F. Drucker on Economic Threats.)
Here is a quick list of the new/original book titles, original years of publication, and sample essays:
New title: Peter F. Drucker on Business and Society
Original title: Men, Ideas & Politics: Essays by Peter F. Drucker
Original publisher/year of publication: Harper & Row, 1971
Sample essays: “The New Markets and the New Entrepreneurs,” “The Unfashionable Kierkegaard,” “The Secret Art of Being an Effective President,” “The American Genius is Political,” “What We Can Learn From Japanese Management”
New title: Peter F. Drucker on Economic Threats
Original title: The Changing World of the Executive
Original publisher/year of publication: Truman Talley Books/Times Books, 1982
Sample essays: “A Scorecard for Management,” “The Information Explosion,” “Managing the Non-Profit Institution,” “The Future of Health Care,” “Report on the Class of ‘68”
New title: Peter F. Drucker on Globalization
Original title: The Frontiers of Management: Where Tomorrow’s Decisions Are Being Shaped Today
Original publisher/year of publication: Truman Talley Books/E.P. Dutton, 1986
Sample essays: “Europe’s High-Tech Ambitions,” “The Perils of Adversarial Trade,” “Overpaid Executives: The Greed Effect,” “The Information-Based Organization,” “Social Needs and Business Opportunities”
New title: Peter F. Drucker on Management Essentials
Original title: People and Performance: The Best of Peter Drucker on Management
Original publisher/year of publication: Harper’s College Press, 1977
Sample essays: “The Dimensions of Management,” “From Middle Management to Knowledge Organization,” “The Delusion of Profits,” “How to Be an Employee,” “Management and the Quality of Life”
New title: Peter F. Drucker on Nonprofits and the Public Sector
Original title: Toward the Next Economics and other Essays
Original publisher/year of publication: Harper & Row, 1981
Sample essays: “Saving the Crusade: The High Cost of Our Environmental Future,” “Business and Technology,” “Multinationals and Developing Countries: Myths and Realities,” “After Fixed-Age Retirement is Gone,” “A View of Japan Through Japanese Art”
New title: Peter F. Drucker on Practical Leadership
Original title: Managing for the Future: The 1990s and Beyond
Original publisher/year of publication: Talley Books/Plume, 1993
Sample essays: “The Futures Already Around Us,” “The Mystique of the Business Leader,” “Leadership: More Doing Than Dash,” “Corporate Culture: Use It, Don’t Lose It,” “The 10 Rules of Effective Research”
New title: Peter F. Drucker on the Network Economy
Original title: Managing in a Time of Great Change
Original publisher/year of publication: Truman Talley Books/Dutton, 1995
Sample essays: “Managing in the Network Society,” “Be Data Literate: Know What to Know,” “The Information Executives Need Today,” “Reinventing Government,” “Can the Democracies Win the Peace?”
New title: Peter F. Drucker on Technology
Original title: Technology, Management & Society: Essays by Peter F. Drucker
Original publisher/year of publication: Harper & Row, 1970
Sample essays: “Information, Communication, and Understanding,” “Technological Trends in the Twentieth Century,” “The Once and Future Manager,” “The First Technological Revolution and its Lessons,” “Can Management Ever Be a Science?”
Most of the original books are available in various earlier editions, primarily as used books. And it is fun to see some of the artwork on the original and subsequent editions, in the United States and elsewhere. But the new collection, and especially with its attractive cover designs, is a convenient window into Drucker’s wide-ranging, original, and prescient insights over a period of many years. What will ‘The Drucker Library’ look like in its edition of 2030?