The old rules of investing used to be a simple and clear: you bought shares and left the operation of the company to a group of professional managers; if you were unhappy with the firm's performance, you sold your shares and moved on. But with the rise of large institutional investors, the option of selling has become problematic. It's one thing to cash out when you own a hundred shares of a company; it's another thing entirely when you own a hundred thousand shares.

So fund managers have adopted a new strategy - changing the corporation's policies from within - with dramatic results. Investor Capitalism documents the ensuing struggles among interested parties that have transformed the way in which business goes about its business. Michael Useem takes us inside the boardrooms and into the proxy battles to track the origins of this shift in corporate power and analyze what it has meant for corporations, shareholders, employees, and the American economy.

His insights reveal a brave new world of business, which we ignore at our peril.