The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business
by Afred D. Chandler, Jr. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: January 1, 1993. 624 pages.

The seminal work on American business history against which all others are measured. How we evolved from the one-man shop and family farm where the owner was the manager and the worker to organizations of unprecedented scale where the work of management is a unique craft and the owner need not be present.