Applying certain Marxist categories of analysis to the study of American history, the central thesis of this outstanding book is that the main peculiarity of American historical development was the almost direct transition from a colonial to an imperialist economy. Expertly dealing with such topics as:

* the American Revolution and the Civil War against the background of the European bourgeois revolutions
* the influence of the Western land tenure system on the process of capital accumulation
* the passage from plantation slavery to sharecropping in the South and its legacy of...

Unilever is an Anglo-Dutch multinational, founded by merger in 1930, with a long tradition of allowing independent scholars to research its history. The aim of this book is to examine the effects of World War II on the structure, strategy and performance of Unilever, which had huge interests on both sides of World War II, in particular in the British Empire as well as in the German Reich. It focuses on the company in Britain, the Netherlands and Germany in the 1939-1945 period.

This book ties together business history, the history of the Nazi economic administration and European...

"This is a story about stories and specifically about some of the stories that Americans have told themselves about corporate economic power." In this book, Anne Mayhew focuses on the stories surrounding the creation of Standard Oil and Wal-Mart and their founders, John D. Rockefeller and Sam Walton, combining the accounts of economists with the somewhat darker pictures painted by writers of fiction to tease out the overarching narratives associated with American big business.

Mayhew argues that the diverse views about big business and its effects of welfare can be...

This book examines women's financial activity from the early days of the stock market in eighteenth century England and the South Sea Bubble to the mid-twentieth century. The essays demonstrate how many women managed their own finances despite legal and social restrictions and show that women were neither helpless, incompetent and risk-averse, nor were they unduly cautious and conservative. Rather, many women learnt about money and made themselves effective and engaged managers of the funds at their disposal.

The essays focus on Britain, from eighteenth-century London, to the...

Origins of Globalization draws widely on ancient sources and modern economic theory to detail the concept of "known world" globalization, arguing that a mixed economy--similar in many respects to our own--existed in a variety of forms throughout the ancient world. By analyzing the business practices of the ancient world--phenomena such as resource and market seeking behavior, international trade from China, India and Rome, to Africa and even northern and western parts of Europe, Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) operating internationally and outsourcing production,...

This book examines trademarks and brands, and their historical role in national competitive and comparative advantage and in overall economic growth. The contributors provide an historical account of the contribution of brands in consumer goods to economic growth; examine the development of trademark law, its influence on brand strategy, and reciprocally the influence of strategy on the law; and look at the building and repositioning of individual brands as example of the interplay of law and strategy.

Brands and trademarks are usually discussed from the perspective of marketing....

The entrepreneur is involved in the dance of two questions - what is needed and what is possible. The interplay of these two questions is an ongoing process and innovation varies internationally and regionally, depending on differing legal and policy systems, variations in the development of education and skill development, in social processes and in knowledge transfer. This book explores innovation and networks in entrepreneurship with an interdisciplinary approach, focusing on how old and new knowledge can be combined to produce radical innovation.

These chapters combine themes...

This book examines women's financial activity from the early days of the stock market in eighteenth century England and the South Sea Bubble to the mid-twentieth century. The essays demonstrate how many women managed their own finances despite legal and social restrictions and show that women were neither helpless, incompetent and risk-averse, nor were they unduly cautious and conservative. Rather, many women learnt about money and made themselves effective and engaged managers of the funds at their disposal.

The essays focus on Britain, from eighteenth-century London, to the...