Opinions vary as to what defines a “classic” business book. My own opinion is that it offers insights and counsel that are of timeless value. To paraphrase Bernard of Chartres, a 12th century monk, their authors are the shoulders upon which each new generation of leaders stands. For example:

The Marketing Imagination
Theodore Levitt
Free Press (1986)

If there were a Mount Rushmore for marketing, Theodore Levitt would be right up there in Washington’s spot. The economist and Harvard Business School professor published the seminal article “Marketing Myopia” in Harvard Business Review in 1960; it later appeared in the second edition of this book. Levitt argues that, “the history of every dead and dying ‘growth’ industry shows a self-deceiving cycle of bountiful expansion and undetected decay,” and companies require a process for creating or increasing demand. He was among the first to insist that companies focus on “buying customers” by being and doing whatever “will make people want to do business with them. And the chief executive,” he writes, “has the inescapable responsibility for creating this environment, this viewpoint, this attitude, this aspiration.”