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Ted Nace is a former technology writer/editor for PC World and Macworld. In 1985 he founded Peachpit Press, a "kitchen-table" book publishing startup in Berkeley, California. Under his leadership, Peachpit developed a number of innovative computer book series, including Little Books, Visual QuickStart Guides, and Real World Guides. The company quickly won renown for its harmonious and creative arrangements with authors, and it produced million-copy best-sellers, outpacing older and larger companies to become the world's leading source of books on computer graphics and desktop publishing. A decade after founding Peachpit Press, Nace sold the publishing house to British conglomerate Pearson PLC, and he returned to freelance writing. Having witnessed his own company?s transformation from startup to mega-corporation, he began exploring the historic roots of the corporation and the evolution of corporate legal doctrines. The result of that research, Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy (Berrett-Koehler, 2003), combines Nace's reflections on his own career in business with his findings about how the corporation came to be the dominant institution shaping modern society. The New York Times review of Gangs of America described the book as ?a surprising and welcome achievement ... provocative and entertaining.?