Far too often, globalization is viewed as an unknowable and uncontrollable force, but here, Jeffrey Garten considers ten individuals who had a direct hand in transforming the world. Among the familiar figures profiled here are Genghis Khan—who united East and West through trade routes—mogul turned philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, and Margaret Thatcher, whose controversial policies opened the gusher of substantially free markets that linked economies across borders. Here too are communications pioneer Cyrus Field, banker Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Intel founder Andrew Grove, modern China's reinventor Deng Xiaoping, and pan-European political visionary Jean Monnet.