Harvard Studies in Business History

British mercantile houses--privately financed commercial enterprises dealing in the import and export of goods--integrated Argentine production into the world economy between 1810 and 1880. Reber evaluates in detail business operations and decision making and analyzes the relationship between business practices and the Argentine economic and political environment.

Wilkins, the foremost authority on foreign investment in the United States, continues her magisterial history in a work covering the critical years 1914-1945. Integrating economic, business, technological, legal, and diplomatic history, this comprehensive study is essential to understanding the internationalization of the American economy, as well as broader global trends.

Fedor Chizhov built the first railroad owned entirely by Russian stockholders, created Moscow’s first bank and mutual credit society, and launched the first profitable steamship line based in Archangel. In this valuable book, Thomas Owen vividly illuminates the life and world of this seminal figure in early Russian capitalism.

In a pioneering work, Jeffrey Fear overturns the dominant understanding of German management as "backward" relative to the U.S. and uncovers an autonomous and sophisticated German managerial tradition. Beginning with founder August Thyssen--the Andrew Carnegie of Germany--Fear traces the evolution of management inside the Thyssen-Konzern and the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steel Works) between 1871 and 1934.

The dean of business historians continues his masterful chronicle of the transforming revolutions of the twentieth century. Alfred Chandler argues that only with consistent attention to research and development and an emphasis on long-term corporate strategies could firms remain successful over time. He details these processes for nearly every major chemical and pharmaceutical firm, demonstrating why some companies forged ahead while others failed.

Consumer electronics and computers redefined life and work in the twentieth century. In Inventing the Electronic Century, Pulitzer Prize–winning business historian Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. traces their origins and worldwide development. From electronics prime mover RCA in the 1920s to Sony and Matsushita’s dramatic rise in the 1970s; from IBM’s dominance in computer technology in the 1950s to Microsoft’s stunning example of the creation of competitive advantage, this masterful analysis is essential reading for every manager and student of technology.

In retelling success stories from Benjamin Franklin to Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates, Laird goes beyond personality, upbringing, and social skills to reveal the critical common key--access to circles that control and distribute opportunity and information. She contrasts how Americans have prospered--or not--with how we have talked about prospering.

In this magisterial study, Michael Smith explains how France left behind small-scale merchant capitalism for the large corporate enterprises that would eventually dominate its domestic economy and project French influence throughout the world. Arguing against the long-standing view that French economic and business development was crippled by missed opportunities and entrepreneurial failures, Smith presents a story of considerable achievement.

In the growing and dynamic economy of nineteenth-century America, businesses sold vast quantities of goods to one another, mostly on credit. This book explains how business people solved the problem of whom to trust--how they determined who was deserving of credit, and for how much. Rowena Olegario traces the way resistance, mutual suspicion, skepticism, and legal challenges were overcome in the relentless quest to make information on business borrowers more accurate and available.

Gentlemen Bankers focuses on the social and economic circles of one of America’s most renowned and influential financiers, J. P. Morgan, to tell a closely focused story of how economic and political interests intersected with personal rivalries and friendships among the Wall Street aristocracy during the first half of the twentieth century.