In this provocative analysis of a nation in transition, one of America's most eminent historians examines the roots of America's shifting values and, in particular, how current changes in American business affect--and sometimes threaten--our nation's most fundamental beliefs. Looking back over some four hundred years of American history, Cochran offers some new and profound insights into the American work ethic, the decline of the manufacturing sector, the American standard of living, and the psychological and economic strains caused by bureaucracy and the development of industrial technology.