A family business prospers through a series of brutal consolidations and rational growth. Then senseless internal conflicts lead to a long line of demented CEOs, monumental expansion, and foolish diversification-at a high cost in shattered lives. In the end, a series of reverse takeovers leaves the once-proud but now overextended and corrupt parent company at the mercy of less-civilized operations that previously cringed at the grandeur of the corporate brand.

Enron? WorldCom? Try Rome, whose rise and fall carry a moral that lingers to this day for the managers, employees, and students of any global enterprise. Stanley Bing-whose satirical business books are as savagely funny as they are insightful-mingles business parable and cautionary tale into an ingenious, often hilarious new telling of the story of the Roman Empire.