In this engrossing fifty-year journey chronicling the extraordinary adventures and observations of a legendary journalist for Time, Life and Fortune, Roy Rowan revisits powerful people who have helped shape the twentieth century. His riveting story begins with Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek during their brutal struggle for control of China - a conflict in which Rowan was deeply immersed - and ends with Ross Perot, the blunt-speaking billionaire who has become a force in American politics.

Populating the pages between them are such historical personalities as General Douglas MacArthur, Marshal Tito, Jimmy Hoffa, Henry Luce, Imelda Marcos, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. During his career, Rowan looked for characteristics that separate the powerful from everyone else. His search took him to the wars in China, Korea and Vietnam, to civil rights riots, as well as to fierce battles in corporate America.

Because the lives of these influential men and women still have currency, their stories raise a basic question relevant to us all. In today's world, with so much emphasis on human values, how are we to view the pursuit of power?