The Arc of Ambition: Defining the Leadership Journey.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Review

By James Champy and Nitin Nohria. Perseus Books, 272 pages. $16.

Fundamentally, this book is about inspiration. It examines a number of leadership qualities -- some quite different -- and places them in con text with examples drawn from history and from current business leaders. It also drives home a central theme: All success can at some point be traced to ambition, which the authors say "is both a goal and a goad -- a compulsion to strive for something worth achieving. No action -- and certainly no great enterprise -- is thinkable without it."

Using that as a premise, the authors string together themed chapters drawing from figures such as Napoleon, the Wright Brothers, Mar tin Luther King Jr. and Thomas Jefferson, interspersed with vignettes involving modern business figures like Sam Walton, Ray Kroc of McDonald's, Ted Turner and eBay's Meg Whitman, as well as a few more obscure names.

For the most part, the messages are...