The franchising and real-estate model that defined fast food, with a strong founder memoir and a defining critical work.
How fast food reshaped farming, meatpacking, food science and low-wage work.
Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Kevin Rose, Richard Branson
A milkshake-machine salesman finds the McDonald brothers and builds the franchise.
Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai
McDonald's to the mid-1980s, from the brothers' stand to Kroc's franchise system.
Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai
How McDonald's and fast-food franchising became bound up with Black America.
The standardisation model that made the chain scalable.
Edited fieldwork on how the format was localised across Asia.
Early unauthorised account of the franchise and real-estate machine.
The London libel trial that became a reputational case study.