Publications

Article

Oral History and the Business History of Emerging Markets

By: Geoffrey Jones and Rachael Comunale

This article highlights the benefits that rigorous use of oral history can offer to research on the contemporary business history of emerging markets. Oral history can help fill some of the major information voids arising from the absence of a strong tradition of... View Details

Keywords: Oral History; Corruption; Business History; Emerging Markets; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Business and Government Relations; Government and Politics; Asia; Africa; Latin America

2018
Working Paper

Oral History and Writing the Business History of Emerging Markets

By: Geoffrey Jones and Rachael Comunale

This working paper highlights the benefits that rigorous use of oral history can offer to research on the contemporary business history of emerging markets. Oral history can help fill some of the major information voids arising from the absence of a strong tradition of... View Details

Keywords: Oral History; Business History; Research; Emerging Markets

SSRN

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June 2024
Article

Oral History and Business History in Emerging Markets

By: Geoffrey Jones

This article describes the motivation, structure and use of the Creating Emerging Markets (CEM) oral history-based project at the Harvard Business School. The project consists of lengthy interviews with business leaders from emerging markets. By June 2024 183... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Economies; Oral History; Emerging Markets; Business History; Research

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Article

The Future of Economic, Business, and Social History

By: G. Jones, Marco H.D. van Leeuwen and Stephen Broadberry

Three leading scholars in the fields of business, economic, and social history review the current state of these disciplines and reflect on their future trajectory. Geoffrey Jones reviews the development of business history since its birth at the Harvard Business... View Details

Keywords: Economic History; Business History; History; Asia; Africa; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America

2008
Book

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

By: Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson traces the historical evolution of the financial system, from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia to the latest upheavals on what he calls "Planet Finance." In doing so, he reveals financial history as the essential backstory behind all history, from the... View Details

Keywords: Financial History; Money; Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Investment; Globalization

02 Mar 2016
News

David Moss is Rewriting History

Photographed by Webb Chappell In March 2010, the 1787 drafting of the United States Constitution became breaking news. The members of the Texas State Board of Education had convened in Austin to review the state’s history and other social studies curricula. A battle... View Details

Keywords: April White

Research Summary

Business History

By: Walter A. Friedman

Walter Friedman serves as co-editor of Business History Review. He has a special interest in the history of marketing and personal selling, and is author of Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (Harvard, 2004). He is also interested in the... View Details

Fall 2011
Article

A Brief Postwar History of U.S. Consumer Finance

By: Gunnar Trumbull and Peter Tufano

In this brief history of U.S. consumer finance since World War II, the sector is defined based on the functions delivered by firms in the form of payments, savings and investing, borrowing, managing risk, and providing advice. Evidence of major trends in consumption,... View Details

Keywords: Consumer Finance; Consumer Credit; U.s. History; Consumer Behavior; Personal Finance; Credit; Trends; History; United States

1991
Book

Banks and Money: International and Comparative Finance in History

By: G. Jones

Keywords: Financial History; Banks and Banking; Money

19 Apr 2010
Research & Ideas

The History of Beauty

Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry is the first serious attempt to trace the history of the $330 billion global beauty industry and its large collection of fascinating entrepreneurs... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Beauty & Cosmetics

Research Summary

Business history

Espen Storli is currently working on a project on commodity trading in the post-WWII period, with a special interest in the political economy of the world mercury markets. He is also one of the editors of a forthcoming book on the global economic history of bauxite. View Details

01 Sep 2023
News

History Matters

1913 and beyond, displays the six regularities that I mentioned earlier and connects the Panic of 1907 to the founding of the US Federal Reserve System. To take such a long view means connecting dots of history in a more useful way,... View Details

Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

2014
Chapter

Business History and the Impact of MNEs on Host Economies

By: Geoffrey Jones

Business history has long been recognized as providing an important dimension in international business studies. Much of this historical work has focused on mapping historical growth patterns of multinationals and exploring the determinants of their growth. However,... View Details

Keywords: Multinational; International Business; Business History; Culture; Globalization; History; Africa; Asia; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America

01 Dec 2013
News

War History

In September, with President Obama trying to rally support for military action against Syria, the media repeatedly sought out Michael Beschloss (MBA 1980), the author of eight books about American presidents. Beschloss noted that the Founding Fathers "very specifically... View Details

Keywords: Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information; Broadcasting (except Internet); Information; Executive, Legislative, and Other General Government Support; Government

1999
Chapter

Business History

By: N. F. Koehn, T. K. McCraw and H. V. Nelles

Keywords: Business History