Professor Thomas McCraw Honored by International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society
Professor Thomas McCraw BOSTON — Thomas McCraw, the Isidor Straus Professor of Business History Emeritus at Harvard Business School, has received the biennial award from the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society (ISS) for his book Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction (The Belknap Press, 2007). The prize was recently awarded at the Society's 12th conference, "Technological Innovation and Development," in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Prophet of Innovation is the biography of Harvard University Professor Joseph A. Schumpeter (1883 -1950), who made his mark as the prophet of incessant change and is arguably one of the most significant economists and business theorists of the past century. 
McCraw's book chronicles Schumpter's tumultuous life spanning two world wars, the Great Depression, and the early Cold War. Drawing on all of Schumpeter's writings, including many private diaries and letters never before used, McCraw paints the full portrait of a magnetic figure. As the book details, Schumpeter regarded "creative destruction" as the driving force of capitalism. According to this theory, nearly all businesses fail, victims of innovation by their competitors. Businesspeople ignore this lesson at their peril; to survive, they must be entrepreneurial and think strategically. In Schumpeter's view, the general prosperity produced by the "capitalist engine" far outweighs the wreckage it leaves behind. McCraw's biography has also been honored by the Business History Conference and the History of Economics Society. Read the HBS Bulletin's review of Prophet of Innovation: http://www.alumni.hbs.edu/bulletin/2007/june/schumpeter.html Founded in 1986, the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society aims to further research in the spirit of Joseph A. Schumpeter, particularly the scientific study of the problems of development in advanced economies. Headquartered in Germany, ISS has 412 members from 40 countries. Additional information can be found here: http://www.iss-evec.de/ About Thomas McCraw |
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