Publications

2014
Book

Empire of Cotton: A Global History

By: Sven Beckert

The epic story of the rise and fall of the empire of cotton, its centrality to the world economy, and its making and remaking of global capitalism. Cotton is so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible, yet understanding its history is key to understanding the origins... View Details

Keywords: Economic Systems; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Globalized Markets and Industries; Society; Manufacturing Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

19 Apr 2004
Research & Ideas

Birth of the American Salesman

"The development of modern sales management is an uniquely American story." Why do you think this is? Walter Friedman: In the early nineteenth century, many nations, certainly all the European... View Details

Keywords: by Laura Linard

2011
Book

Translating Empire: Emulation and the Origins of Political Economy

By: Sophus A. Reinert

Historians have traditionally used the discourses of free trade and laissez-faire to explain the development of political economy during the Enlightenment. But from Sophus Reinert's perspective, eighteenth-century political economy can be understood only in the context... View Details

Keywords: Business History; Government and Politics

1986
Book

Banking and Empire in Iran

By: Geoffrey Jones

This is the first of two volumes of a business history of a major British bank in the Middle East. Volume 1 traces the history of the bank from its foundation in 1889 as The Imperial Bank of Persia, through the years it was the state bank of Iran, and its development... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; International Relations; Business History; Economic History; Political History; War; Iran; Russia; Great Britain

2009
Chapter

Chinese Railroads, Local Society, and Foreign Presence: The Tianjin-Pukou Line in pre-1949 Shandong

By: Elisabeth Koll

This chapter explores issues of how Chinese railroads improved social mobility and standards of living along major trunk lines, and how foreign investment shaped the integration of the Chinese railroad network from the early 1900s to 1949. As this case study of the... View Details

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Business History; Industry Growth; Welfare or Wellbeing; Rail Transportation; Rail Industry; China

23 May 2018
Research & Ideas

How to Know If Your Neighborhood Is Being Gentrified

The High Line redevelopment in winter, New York City. sx70 A new study of gentrification shows that the addition of a coffee shop or restaurant in your neighborhood could be an early indicator that housing prices are about to spike. The... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

06 Apr 2010
First Look

First Look: April 6

embellishments, rather than innovative, modern cuts and designs—was not a function only of something inherently and ineffably Indian (as opposed to a modern, Western sensibility), or purely cultural. Rather, it was the result of the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

01 Nov 1999
Research & Ideas

John H. Patterson and the Sales Strategy of the National Cash Register Company, 1884 to 1922

all the benefits of the register, Patterson gave them scripts to memorize. The practice of writing out sales arguments was rare, but not as new as some of Patterson's biographers claim. Booksellers and other canvassers had used scripts prior to the first N.C.R. Primer... View Details

Keywords: by Walter A. Friedman

Research Summary

Technology and Knowledge Transfer in the Evolution of China’s Machine Industry

This work-in-progress provides a historical perspective on the role of foreign companies as providers of machinery equipment and facilitators of technology transfer in China from the last decade of the 19^th century to the early 1950s. The project focuses on... View Details

15 Jun 2007
Research & Ideas

Remembering Alfred Chandler

Harvard Business School, where he teaches the (MBA) Foundations business history course, Creating Modern Capitalism. He also serves as co-editor of the Business History Review. Al Chandler is appropriately regarded as the founder of the... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne

Research Summary

Overview

By: Charlotte L. Robertson

Professor Robertson conducts research on the history of financial markets. Her book manuscript and working papers shed light on the evolution of securities markets and the relationship between finance, governance, and society. Some of the topics she pursues include:... View Details

November 2010
Technical Note

Technical Note: An Abridged History of the American Corporation

By: Rakesh Khurana, Andrew David Klaber and Eric Baldwin

This note examines the development of the corporate form in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present, focusing primarily on legal issues. It identifies several major trends in the history of the American corporation: the transition of corporations... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Corporate Accountability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; History; Code Law; Managerial Roles; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Private Ownership; United States

12 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

Entrepreneurship and Multinationals Drive Globalization

Entrepreneurship and Multinationals: Global Business and the Making of the Modern World, and his views on subjects ranging from whether globalism has been a force for good to what Nazi Germany tells us about the difficulty in planning for... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Beauty & Cosmetics; Manufacturing; Consumer Products; Pharmaceutical

25 Apr 2005
Research & Ideas

New Learning at American Home Products

penicillin for Canada's armed forces, provided American Home Products with a learning base in the antibiotic revolution at its very beginning. Early in the postwar era, American Home Products moved out of chemicals but continued to expand... View Details

Keywords: by Alfred D. Chandler Jr.; Chemical; Health; Manufacturing; Pharmaceutical

February 2016 (Revised August 2021)
Case

Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Black Voting Rights

By: David Moss and Dean Grodzins

In January 1965, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the most prominent leader of the civil rights movement in the United States, launched a campaign of civil disobedience in Selma, Alabama, to bring national attention to disenfranchisement of black voters in the South. On... View Details

Keywords: Rights; Voting; Race; Government and Politics; Conflict and Resolution; Leadership; History; Alabama

Educators

November 2014
Case

Napalm: From Soldiers Field to Trang Bang

By: Tom Nicholas and Jonas Peter Akins

Napalm is one of the most destructive weapons ever to be invented. Yet, at its original inception it was nothing more than a technical challenge, and it was never intended to be used in indiscriminate antipersonnel warfare. The pathway of its development by a Harvard... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; War; Chemicals; Research and Development; Chemical Industry; Viet Nam; Cambridge; United States

Educators

June 2010 (Revised January 2019)
Case

The Guggenheims and Chilean Nitrates

By: Geoffrey Jones and Felipe Tamega Fernandes

The case describes the growth of Guggenheim Brothers as one of the largest mining companies in the world in the early twentieth century. Global expansion led the firm to Chile, first in copper and later in natural nitrates. Chile's economic growth was driven by the... View Details

Keywords: History; Venture Capital; Business History; Entrepreneurship; Globalization; Foreign Direct Investment; Financial Crisis; Mining Industry; Chile

Educators