A corporate history that also illuminates a difficult and significant period in U.S. history.

This second volume of the "biography" of America's largest privately held company picks up where Wayne Broehl's highly acclaimed Cargill: Trading the World's Grain left off. The year is 1960; Cargill has evolved from a pioneering grain trading firm to a giant whose enterprises include milling, seed production, livestock feeds, insurance, specialty steel products, metals trading, and even the construction of its own Mississippi River barges. At this crucial point in the company's life, the first non-family CEO is tapped for the company's top post. For the next 17 years, the "Erwin Kelm era" is characterized by continued growth and diversification in the face of changing times and an unpredictable national and international scene. This story of the Kelm years is also a narrative history of an American tradition -- growth, adaptation, and success despite the stresses of internal, national, and world events.

WAYNE G. BROEHL, JR. is Benjamin Ames Kimball Professor of the Science of Administration Emeritus, Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, Dartmouth College. His books include Tuck and Tucker: The Origin of the Graduate Business School (1999), John Deere's Company (1984), and the award-winning Molly Maguires (1964).

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