28 / CHRONICLESnBy the 1950’s, when the Hungariannrevolution and Milovan Djilas’ ThenNew Class generated renewed interestnin the social and pohtical evolution ofnCommunist systems, Rizzi had generallynbeen forgotten. In 1958 an articlenappeared in France that cited Rizzi,nthen believed to be dead, as the sourcenof Djilas’ theory. To the astonishmentnof many, Rizzi turned out to be alive,nand he wrote a letter to the editor ofnthe journal where the article aboutnhim had appeared in which he bitterlynaccused Burnham of having plagiarizednhis ideas. Daniel Bell (a youngernmember of the Socialist Workers Partynat the time that Burnham, MaxnSchachtman, and others were challengingnTrotsky’s interpretation of Stalinismnand later a co-worker withnBurnham in the Congress for CulturalnFreedom in the 1950’s), gave currencynto the charges of Burnham’s plagiarismnin The New Leader. The charge wasnnot invented by Rizzi, however, and itnhas followed Burnham’s reputationnlike Banquo’s ghost ever since.nIt is the great merit of Mr. Westoby’snFrom Lima to Tammany HallnMany Americans know W.R.nGrace & Company as one of thennation’s leading chemical manufacturers,nwith significant holdings innrestaurants, retailing, and agriculture.nIt may come as a surprise tonthem that the company began innthe Peruvian guano trade of thenmid-1800’s. In Grace: W.R. Gracen& Co., The Formative Years, 1850-n1930 (Ottawa, IL: Jameson Books;n$22.50), Lawrence A. Clayton recountsnthe story of the foundingnand remarkable rise of this Pan-nAmerican company. It is a story asnmuch about Peru and its LatinnAmerican neighbors as it is aboutnthe dynamic Grace family.nWhen William Russell Gracenfirst arrived in Peru in 1851 as anyoung man of 19, he found a backwardncountry, steeped in the superstitionsnof an Incan past, overlaidnwith the feudal Spanish traditionsnbrought by the conquistadors. AsnPeru charted its torturous passagenerudite introduction to his edition ofnRizzi that this ghost is finally laid tonrest. As Bell acknowledged at the timenand as Westoby reaffirms, the idea of anbureaucratic transformation of capitalismnwas “in the air” in the late 19thnand early 20th centuries, much asnwere ideas about flying machines andnhorseless carriages, and who influencednwhom is not always easy tondiscern, nor indeed worth discerning.nThe Polish anarchist Waclaw Machajskinhad developed a similar thesis angeneration earlier, as had ThorsteinnVeblen in his The Engineers and thenPrice System in 1919. The seeds of thenidea can be found in Max Weber andnVilfredo Pareto and indeed in AdamnSmith and Karl Marx. In the 1930’snA.A. Berle and Gardiner C. Meansndeveloped a similar thesis in The ModernnCorporation and Private Property,nand by the post-World War II era thenidea of a managerial revolution, in onenform or another, had become a commonplace,nthough still rejected bynMarxists and the political left.nNot only did Burnham not plagia­nREVISIONSninto the modern world of railroads,nelectricity, and democracy, fewnmen more decisively influenced itsnprogress than this ambitious youngnIrishman. During the 1850’s, WilliamnGrace established himself as anprovider of naval stores to the shipsncarrying loads of guano away fromnPeru’s Chincha Islands. In the yearsnthat followed, he boldly expandednhis Peruvian-based operations, withnthe help of his brothers, John andnMichael, and his son, Joseph. Hisndiverse enterprises in sugar, rubber,nairlines, mining, lumber, and shippingndid as much to modernizenPeru as they did to enrich the companynaccounts.nClayton concedes that, like othernmultinationals, W.R. Grace & Co.nmay be charged with “the extensionnof capitalistic imperialism,” sincenthe company’s quest for profits didnnot always enhance the Peruviannculture or serve the Peruvian people.nYet Clayton stresses the pivotalnrole of W.R. Grace in bringing tonPeru “better public services, im­nnnrize Rizzi, it is also probable thatnBurnham himself influenced the developmentnof Rizzi’s ideas. Westobynpoints out, for the first time, that inn1937 Burnham published an articlenunder a pseudonym, arguing that thenSoviet Union was neither capitalist nornsocialist but some other kind ofnpolitical-economic system, that Trotskynhad referred and replied to thisnarticle, and that Rizzi, though he wasnunaware of Burnham’s authorship,nwas undoubtedly influenced bynBurnham’s idea before he wrote ThenBureaucratization of the World.nAnyone who reads both Rizzi’s booknand Burnham’s attentively will see atnonce that Burnham owed littie to thenshoe salesman. The Managerial Revolution,ndespite its flaws, is a far morensophisticated, learned, and closely reasonednwork than anything Rizzi wrote.nThere is no apparent similarity of textnor style, and Burnham made use of annumber of sociological perspectives,nespecially those of Pareto and Mosca,nbesides that of Marx.nproved medical care, [and] increasednmaterial benefits for thenpopulation at large.” And it wasnMichael Grace who guided Perunthrough a potentially explosive debtncrisis in the 1880’s by renegotiatingnthe nation’s railroad bonds.nNor was Peru the only nation tonbenefit from the political initiativenof the Grace family. Leaving Michaelnin charge in Peru, Williamnmoved in 1866 to New York, wherenhe won election as mayor in 1880nand led the fight against TammanynHall corruption. A businessman experiencednin dealing with LatinnAmerican dictators and in shippingnanimal wastes came doubly preparednfor the world of NYC politics.nReaders of Clayton’s engaging accountnof William Grace’s relentlessnstruggle for better government maynbe glad that the family tradition hasncontinued in the person of PeternGrace, the tireless head of the ReagannAdministration’s Grace Commissionnon government waste.n