Capitalists and Christians: Business Leaders and the Churches in Britain, 1900-1960.

Religion is an aspect of business history that receives all too little scholarly attention. Many business historians would probably take an agnostic stance, adopting the Marxist line of religion as a weapon of social control or, alternatively, the Weber-Tawney sociological view of the Protestant work ethic having helped to promote the rise of capitalism. Yet, for Britain at least, undergoing in the twentieth century a rapid and largely debilitating economic change, much can be learned from studying the interaction of religion and business. In contrast with the United States, in Britain the family business remained strong, allowing scope for devout entrepreneurs to use their wealth and energies in appropriately religious works. Such activities can be set against the dramatic fall in church-going by the British people generally since 1914.

David Jeremy provides an instructive …