Business History articles from January 1999

Business History archives from January 1999

Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin: A Family and Their Times, 1831-1931.(Review)
January 1, 1999... MARGARET FORSTER, (London: Chatto & Windus, 1997. Pp.xvii + 284; illus., tables. ISBN 0 7011 6394 1, [pounds]17.99). Many gaps remain in the ranks of full-length business histories, and one of especial value would be a history of United...

The Quakers: Money and Morals.(Review)
January 1, 1999... JAMES WALVIN, (London: John Murray, 1997. Pp.ix + 243; illus. ISBN 0 7195 5750 X, [pounds]22). The Religious Society of Friends, a group more commonly called Quakers, was the last of the many sects to emerge from the social, political,...

Free Trade and Liberal England: 1846-1946.(Review)
January 1, 1999... ANTHONY HOWE, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Pp.xii + 336. ISBN 0 19 820146 X, [pounds]45). Compared to the attention lavished by historians on the opponents of free trade from 1880 onwards, the free traders themselves have been somewhat...

Davidsons of Mugiemoss: A History of C. Davidson and Sons, Makers of Wrapping Papers, Paper Bags, Paperboard and Plasterboard Liner.(Review)
January 1, 1999... J.N. BARTLETT, (London: Athlone, 1997. Pp.xii + 208; illus. ISBN 0485 1 1514X, [pounds]32). In 1796 Charles Davidson, a millwright and son of an Aberdeenshire dyer, went into partnership with Charles Smith to manufacture paper at a mill on...

Religion, Business and Wealth in Modern Britain.(Review)
January 1, 1999... DAVID J. JEREMY (ed.), (London: Routledge, 1998. Pp.vi + 195; illus.; tables. ISBN 0 415 16898 8, [pounds]50). Max Weber and his thesis about religion and capitalism are treated to yet another retrial in this conference volume. The result...

Catalogue of the Beaverbrook Papers in the House of Lords Record Office, vol. 1, 'Canadian and Business Papers'.(Review)
January 1, 1999... KATHARINE BLIGH, (London: The Stationery Office, 1997. Pp.xiii + 149. ISBN 0 10 850673 8, [pounds]45). William Aitken, better known by his title as (1st) Lord Beaverbrook, was one of a group of Canadian businessmen who settled in Britain...

Understanding Decline: Perceptions and Realities of British Economic Performance.(Review)
January 1, 1999... PETER CLARKE and CLIVE TREBILCOCK (eds.), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp.xv + 313. ISBN 0 521 563178, [pounds]40). This festschrift for Barry, Supple takes as its theme the measurement and interpretation of national...

The New Draperies in the Low Countries and England: 1300-1800.(Review)
January 1, 1999... N.B. HARTE (ed.), (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp.xiii + 334; illus.; maps. H/back ISBN 0 19 921063 2, [pounds]35). This book contains eight essays and an introduction by the editor on the history of the new...

Agriculture, Proto-Industry and Mennonite Entrepreneurship: A History of the Textile Industries in Twente, 1600-1815.(Review)
January 1, 1999... C. TROMPETTER, (Amsterdam: NEHA, Series III, no. 26, 1997. Pp.264; illus.; maps. P/back ISBN 90 71617 91 2, price not given). Twente in the Netherlands is a region of poor soils on the eastern side of the province of Overijasel, close to...

The History of the German Republic Accounting Profession.(Review)
January 1, 1999... H.B. MARCUS, (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1997. Pp.xvi + 354. ISBN 0 8153 3010 3, $70). The author, of German origin, first qualified as a professional accountant in the UK (1950) before joining Price Waterhouse and spending...

Railways and the Formation of the Italian State in the Nineteenth Century.(Review)
January 1, 1999... ALBERT SCHRAM, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp.xvi + 80; illus.; maps. H/back ISBN 0521571596, [pounds]35). This book details the history of the Italian railways by focusing on their relation with the Italian state from the...

Un siecle d'histoire industrielle en Italie (1880-1970): Industrialisation et societes.(Review)
January 1, 1999... MICHELE MERGER, (Paris: Sedes, 1998. Pp. 191. ISBN 2 7181 9057 4, 99FF). The Italian economy has an interesting present and a fascinating past. Innovation in industrial organisation, characterised by the small furniture and...

Duetsche Direktinvestitionen in Grossbritannien: 1871-1918.(Review)
January 1, 1999... ANTJE HAGEN, (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997. Pp.356; illus. P/back ISBN 3 515 07152 0, DM 148). As regards international economics, the second half of the nineteenth century is usually described with terms like 'rise and growth of...

Optionen zukunftiger industrieller Produktionssysteme.(Review)
January 1, 1999... GUNTER SPUR (ed.), (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997. Pp.viii + 630. ISBN 3 05 501803 6, DM 148). A working party of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences considered, over the space of three and a half years, the options open to German...

Magneti Marelli: Its History and Business Transformation, with an Introduction by Guyiseppe Volpato.(Review)
January 1, 1999... RENZO A. CENCIARINI and STEFANIA LICINI, (Milano: Giuffre Editore, 1996. Pp.liii + 262, no price given). The Magneti Marelli company is one of the in-house names of Italian capitalism. Created in 1919 as a partnership between Fiat and...

Ouvrieres parisiennes, Marches dutrvail et trajectoires professionelles au Xxe siecle.(Review)
January 1, 1999... CATHERINE OMNES, (Paris: EHESS, 1998. Pp367. ISBN 2 782713 212260, 190 FF). French historiography on women's history has received little attention. This study of female workers from the Seine district, during the twentieth century, is a...

Les logiques de l'enterprise, la rationalisation francaise de l'entre-deux-guerres.(Review)
January 1, 1999... AIMEE MOUTET, (Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, 1997. Pp.495; P/back ISBN 2 7132 1225 1, FF 250). Scientific management has had its 'golden years' during an era of both growth and decline before the...

Daimler-Benz in the Third Reich.(Review)
January 1, 1999... NEIL GREGOR, (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1998. Pp.xii + 276; illus. ISBN 0 300 07243 0, [pounds]25). Neil Gregor's detailed study of the Daimler-Benz firm in National Socialist (NS) Germany enlarges still further the...

Europe and the Japanese Challenge: The Regulation of Multinationals in Comparative Perspective.(Review)
January 1, 1999... MARK MASON, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp.xiv + 162. ISBN 0 19 829264 3, [pounds]30). This is a slender study of how European policy makers coped with the sudden emergence of Japanese investors behind the walls of the European...

Struktur und Dimension. Festschrift fur Karl Heinrich Kaufhold. vol. 2: Neunzehntes and Zwanzigstes Jahrhundert.(Review)
January 1, 1999... HANS-JURGEN GERHARD (ed.), (VSWG Beihefte, Nr. 133, Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, 1997. Pp.608. ISBN 3 515 0706 4, DM148). In Germany today there is considerable debate about the value of the festschrift. Very often, it has been argued, these...

Voluntary Annual Report Disclosure by Listed Dutch Companies: 1945-1983.(Review)
January 1, 1999... KEES CAMFFERMAN, (New York: Garland, 1997. Pp.ix + 381. H/back ISBN 0 8153 3011 1, [pounds]25). Business history as a discipline has potentially much to gain from accounting research. This is especially true of the strand of accounting...

Political Economy of Financial Integration in Europe: The Battle of the Systems.(Review)
January 1, 1999... JONATHAN STORY and INGO WALTER, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997. Pp.xiv + 337; 26 figs., 10 tables. H/back ISBN 0 7190 4312 3, [pounds]45; p/back ISBN 0 7190 4313 1, [pounds]15.99). Asserting that 'few issues are more...

Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization: 1865-1925.(Review)
January 1, 1999... PHILIP SCRANTON, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997. Pp.xiv + 415; illus. H/back ISBN 0 691 02973 3, [pounds]29.95). In a wide-ranging study Scranton identifies and explores forms of speciality manufacturing in the United...

Blue Skies and Boiler Rooms: Buying and Selling Securities in Canada, 1870-1940.(Review)
January 1, 1999... CHRISTOPHER ARMSTRONG, (University of Toronto Press, 1997. Pp.x + 390; illus. H/back ISBN 0 8020 4184 1, $39.95). This work is one of two volumes dealing with the evolution of securities trading in Canada from the formation of the main...

Hazards of the Job: From Industrial Disease to Environmental Health Science.(Review)
January 1, 1999... CHRISTOPHER C. SELLERS, (Chapel Hill, NC and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). Pp.xv + 331; illus. ISBN 0 8078 2314 7, $45). Hazards of the Job is a major achievement with wide-ranging implications for business history and...

Wall Street: A History.(Review)
January 1, 1999... CHARLES R. GEISST, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp.x + 404. H/back ISBN 01 5115120, [pounds]30). There is a strain of popular literature in the United States that sees the activities of bankers, brokers and big business largely...

Power at Odds: The 1922 National Railroad Shopmen's Strike.(Review)
January 1, 1999... COLIN J. DAVIS, (Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1997. Pp.xii + 244. H/Back ISBN 0252 02312 9, $49.95; p/back ISBN 0252 06612 X, $19.95). Between 1916 and 1920 a tight labour market and a sympathetic government had...

Life in the Shadows of the Crystal Palace, 1910-1927: Ford Workers in the Model T Era.(Review)
January 1, 1999... CLARENCE HOOKER, (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1997. Pp.210; illus; maps. H/back ISBN 0 87972 737 3, $42.95; p/back ISBN 0 87972 738 1, $19.95). The focus of this brief volume is the wage earner and...

Making American Industry Safe for Democracy: Comparative Perspectives on the State and Employee Representation in the Era of World War I.(Review)
January 1, 1999... JEFFREY HAY DU, (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1997. Pp.x + 261. P/back ISBN 0 252 06628 6, $30). The relationship between government and labour in the US during World War I is the subject of two new, impressively documented...

The Engine That Could: 75 Years of Value-Driven Change at Cummins Engine Company.(Review)
January 1, 1999... JEFFREY L. CRUIKSHANK and DAVID B. SICILIA, (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997. Pp.ix + 589; illus. H/back ISBN 0 87584 613 0, $45). Jeffrey Cruikshank's and David Sicilia's The Engine that Could shows just how valuable...

Industrial Policy American Style: From Hamilton to HDTV.(Review)
January 1, 1999... RICHARD D. BINGHAM, (New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. Pp.xvi + 230. H/back ISBN 1 56324 596 5, $55.95; p/back ISBN 1 56324 597 3, $21.95). The aim of this book is to survey recent developments in industrial policies in the USA. The...

The Renaissance of American Steel: Lessons for Managers in Competitive Industries.(Review)
January 1, 1999... R.S. AHLBRANDT, R.J. FRUEHAN and P. GIARRATANI, (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp.x + 178. H/back ISBN 0 19510828 0, [pounds]22.50). In the mid-1970s, the American steel industry was locked in its Middle Ages. Overall...

Revolution at the Checkout Counter: The Explosion of the Bar Code.(Review)
January 1, 1999... STEVEN A. BROWN, (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1997. Pp.xvii + 313. ISBN 0 674 767209, [pounds]19.95). The Universal Product Code - the familiar bar code on consumer products - is one of the most pervasive...

The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism.(Review)
January 1, 1999... THOMAS FRANK, (Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Pp.xii + 287; illus. H/back ISBN 0 226 25991 9, $22.96). In 1965, an advertisement appeared in America promoting Booth's House of Lords Gin. It featured a tie with...

Kids' Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood.(Review)
January 1, 1999... GARY CROSS, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Pp.vii + 283; illus. H/back ISBN 0 674 89830 3, [pounds]19.95). American business historians have now accepted the need to move beyond the institutional model of firm behaviour to...

A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society.(Review)
January 1, 1999... LAWRENCE B. GLICKMAN, (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. Pp.xvi + 220; illus. H/back ISBN 0 8014 3357 6, [pounds]27.50). This book is a reconstruction of the relationship between the living wage and an ideology of...

Cargill: Going Global.(Review)
January 1, 1999... WAYNE G. BROEHL, (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1998. Pp.xi +419. ISBN 0 87451 854 7, $26). This is the second volume of the corporate history of Cargill Inc., the giant US-owned trading company. It covers the relatively short...

Cutting Edge: Gillette's Journey to Global Leadership.(Review)
January 1, 1999... GORDON McKIBBEN, (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1998. Pp.xi + 429. H/back ISBN 0 87584 725 0, $35). McKibben focuses on the modern era of Gillette and the first three three chapters of the book deal with the company's first 75...

Managing Knowledge: Experts, Agencies and Organizations.(Review)
January 1, 1999... STEVEN ALBERT and KEITH BRADLEY, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp.xi + 215: graphs. H/back ISBN 0 521 56150 7, [pounds]40; p/back ISBN 0 521 59887 7, [pounds]14.95). Albert and Bradley wish to demonstrate that expert...

Commerce and Economic Change in West Africa: The Palm Oil Trade in the Nineteenth Century.(Review)
January 1, 1999... MARTIN LYNN, (African Studies Series 93, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp.xvi + 270; maps. H/back ISBN 0 521 59074 4, [pounds]50). This is a fine addition to the highly respected series organised by the African Studies...

Britain and Japan: A Comparative Economic and Social History Since 1900.(Review)
January 1, 1999... KENNETH D. BROWN, (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1998. Pp.xi + 269; 2 maps. H/back ISBN 0 7190 5090 4, [pounds]45; p/back ISBN 0 7190 5291 2, [pounds]14.99). Writing a comparative economic and social history of two...

The Economic Emergence of Modern Japan.(Review)
January 1, 1999... KOZO YAMAMURA (ed.), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp.xvi + 369. H/back ISBN 0 5215 71170, [pounds]50; p/back ISBN 0 521 58946 0, [pounds]16.95). It was always odd that three major articles on Japanese economic history...

The International Co-operative Movement.(Review)
January 1, 1999... JOHNSTON BIRCHALL, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997. Pp.x + 257; illus. H/back ISBN 0 7190 4823 0, [pounds]35; p/back ISBN 0 7190 4824 9, [pounds]14.99). This wide-ranging global history reflects the aspirations of the...

The Corporate Triangle: The Structure and Performance of Corporate Systems in a Global Economy.(Review)
January 1, 1999... W. LAZONICK, R. DORE and H.W. de JONG, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. Pp.vii + 120. ISBN 0 6312 0715, [pounds]30). The dustcover statement asserts that a 'new and important view of the international differences in corporate systems' is presented...

Technology, Innovation and Competitiveness.(Review)
January 1, 1999... JEREMY HOWELLS and JONATHAN MICHIE (eds.), (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1997. Pp.xix + 235. ISBN 1 85898 428 9, [pounds]49.95). This edited volume is based on a Euroconference entitled 'The Globalisation of Technology: Lessons for the Public...

International Business: An Emerging Vision.(Review)
January 1, 1999... BRIAN TOYNE and DOUGLAS NIGH (eds.), (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. Pp.xii + 695. H/back ISBN 1 57003 012, $73). Conference papers are usually of uneven quality and do not attract as much attention as articles in...

Finance in the Age of the Corporate Economy: The Third Anglo-Japanese Business History Conference.(Review)
January 1, 1999... PHILIP COTTRELL, ALICE TEICHOVA and TAKESHI YUZAWA (eds.), (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997. Pp.viii + 269. ISBN I 85928 342 X, [pounds]45). This volume supplies much new information about the banking systems of three key world economies, Japan,...

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk.(Review)
January 1, 1999... PETER L. BERNSTEIN, (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996. Pp.xi + 383. ISBN 0 471 12104 5, $27.95). Nearly 80 years ago, in his brilliant essay on Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, Frank Knight invited his readers to consider a world without...

The Dynamics of the International Brewing Industry Since 1800.(Review)
January 1, 1999... R.G. WILSON and T.R. GOURVISH (eds.), (Routledge, 1998. Pp.xv + 294. H/back ISBN 0 4151 4705 0, [pounds]45). Globalisation is a popular term in business circles nowadays, and for the business historian trying to keep abreast of recent...

Foucault: Management and Organisation Theory.(Review)
January 1, 1999... ALAN McKINLAY and KEN STARKEY (eds.), (London: Sage, 1998. Pp.xiii + 241. H/back ISBN 0 8039 7546 5, [pounds]15). This collection consists of 11 papers, some of them already published elsewhere, and two of them contributed by the editors,...

The sources of innovation in the woollen and worsted industry of eighteenth-century Yorkshire.
January 1, 1999... Using the eighteenth-century wool textile industry of Yorkshire as an example, this article seeks to explain the genesis of the kind of innovation commonly associated with the industrial economy which emerged in England in the latter part of...

Wealth making in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain: industry v. commerce and finance.
January 1, 1999... According to W.D. Rubinstein, the British economy became more oriented towards commerce and finance from the late nineteenth century. onwards, with only a 'brief interruption of factory capitalism in the first half of the nineteenth...

Banks, industry and finance, 1880-1914.
January 1, 1999... Investigation of the role of finance within British economic development provides the motivation for this article. In British historiography a great deal of attention has focused on the half-century or so before the First World War, with a...

Textile business in Europe during the First World War: the linen industry, 1914-18.
January 1, 1999... The war in Europe between 1914 and 1918 has generated relatively few case studies from business historians writing in the English language. This is rather surprising since the unexpected length and cost of the conflict, unparalleled state...

Corporate governance in France and the UK: long-term perspectives on contemporary institutional arrangements.
January 1, 1999... The Credit Lyonnais is involved in all imaginable financial operations from the most prudent to the most risky. It is a zealous company in all meanings of this strong term. The present leadership has a lot less experience and wisdom than...

The study of big business: lessons from the past.
January 1, 1999... MARK CASSON (ed.), The Rise of Big Business: The British Experience (London: Routledge, 1997. 8 vols ISBN 0-415-15087-6, [pounds]475). Vol. 1, D.H. MacGregor, Industrial Combination (1906/1938); Vol.2, G.R. Carter, The Tendency Towards...