Why and how has the Business Corporation come to exert such a powerful influence on American Society? The essays here take up this question, offering a fresh perspective on the ways in which the business corporation has assumed as enduring place in the modern capitalist economy, and how it has affected American society, culture and politics over the past two centuries. The authors challenge standard assumptions about the business corporation's emergence and performance in the United States over the past two centuries. Reviewing in depth the different theoretical and historiographical...

Why and how has the Business Corporation come to exert such a powerful influence on American Society? The essays here take up this question, offering a fresh perspective on the ways in which the business corporation has assumed as enduring place in the modern capitalist economy, and how it has affected American society, culture and politics over the past two centuries. The authors challenge standard assumptions about the business corporation's emergence and performance in the United States over the past two centuries. Reviewing in depth the different theoretical and historiographical...

In 1892, John Elliott Tappan, a twenty-four year old Minneapolis lawyer, was worried how people saved their money. Out of these concerns, Investors Syndicate was born, one of the first of a new type of financial institution designed to meet the savings needs of the average person. Here is the story of this financial pioneer, whose innovation has today grown into one of the nation's largest financial services companies, American Express Financial Advisors. The book draws on Tappan's diaries, business correspondence, and various family oral histories. Tappan's life, work and ideas chronicle the...