A roller-coaster ride through the decades in a candid view of the major players and landmarks of 20th-century British business.;Published to commemorate 100 years of the Institute of Directors, the book takes in the birth of key companies and the launch of important brands, with profiles of business movers and shakers along the way. It covers everything from the family firms of the early 1900s, to the growth of consumer society; from "Swinging London" and the new businesses it spawned, to the Thatcherite revolution of the 1980s and the emergence of business "heroes" like Richard Branson, Sir John Harvey-Jones and Anita Roddick. Moving onto the modern themes of globalization, the digital revolution and dotcom mania, the book closes with a look at what the future holds.