This sweeping manifesto posits that the American skill for entrepreneurship is unparalleled, and is the sole secret of its economic success. To survive and to continue in its leadership role in the world economy, America must see entrepreneurship as its central comparative edge, and must exploit it fully. Nothing else can give the United States the necessary leverage to remain an economic superpower-not technology, education, basic manufacturing, or capital markets. The country's only unique advantage is its entrepreneurship. Schramm explores in depth the four key components of the American entrepreneurial imperative, and the profound impact they make on the way we conduct foreign affairs, lead companies, make personal job decisions, and run universities and foundations.

Carl J. Schramm is president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, a world leader in advancing entrepreneurship. Trained as an economist and lawyer, he has founded companies in the health care, finance, and information technology arenas. He is a Batten Fellow at Virginia's Darden School of Business and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 2004, Carl Schramm, president of the Kauffman Foundation, the world's leading foundation for entrepreneurship, published a groundbreaking essay with a radical premise: that Americans literally have no conception of the secret that truly underlies our economic success, and that for the United States to survive and continue to lead the world's economy, it is imperative we learn to understand and employ that secret.

The secret that has led the American economy to become the world's strongest? Our unparalleled skill as entrepreneurs. As Schramm compellingly shows in this sweeping manifesto, entrepreneurship alone—not anything else—can give America the necessary leverage to remain an economic superpower. Not technology, since everyone now has the same technology, or access to it. Not education—we are years behind other nations in this area. Not basic manufacturing, long since moved overseas from the United States. And not capital markets, now truly global entities.

Drawing on detailed research conducted by the Kauffman Foundation and on his decades of experience as an entrepreneur himself and as a leader and mentor to other entrepreneurs, Schramm persuasively demonstrates in detail what this entrepreneurial imperative means for the way we run universities and foundations, lead companies, make personal job decisions, and even conduct our foreign affairs. The Entrepreneurial Imperative will change not only the way our government, corporations, and nonprofits operate, but also our day-to-day lives as working Americans.