22 Jul 2009

Harvard Business School Historian Thomas McCraw Wins Lifetime Achievement Award

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Professor Thomas McCraw

BOSTON — Thomas K. McCraw, the Isidor Straus Professor of Business History Emeritus at Harvard Business School, is the 2009 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Business History Conference (BHC), an international organization devoted to encouraging all aspects of research, writing, and teaching in the field of business history.

A member of the active HBS faculty from 1976 to 2006 and a much honored author and teacher, McCraw was cited by the BHC as "one of the most distinguished business historians of his generation." His large body of work, from case studies and papers to journal articles and books, was praised for its contribution to making "business history more accessible and more influential in the wider fields of history and management."

McCraw's most recent work, Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction (Harvard University Press, 2007) won, among other awards, the Hagley Prize for best book in business history and the Joseph Spengler Prize for best book on the history of economics. His 1984 book, Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, Alfred E. Kahn, won both the Pulitzer Prize for history and the Thomas Newcomen Award, given for the best book on the history of business published over a three-year period.

At 68, McCraw is the youngest winner of the BHC's Lifetime Achievement Award, which was established in 2002 and is given biennially. The first recipient was the late Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., the renowned Harvard Business School historian who was McCraw's mentor for many years and preceded him in the Straus Professorship.

About Harvard Business School

Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston. Its faculty of more than 250 offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and PhD degrees, as well as more than 175 Executive Education programs, and Harvard Business School Online, the School’s digital learning platform. For more than a century, faculty have drawn on their research, their experience in working with organizations worldwide, and their passion for teaching, to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. The School and its curriculum attract the boldest thinkers and the most collaborative learners who will go on to shape the practice of business and entrepreneurship around the globe.