New Books in Economic and Business History
Interviews with scholars of the economic and business history about their new books
Show episodes
Christopher Corker, "The Business and Technology of the Sheffield Armaments Industry, 1900-1930" (U of York, 2016)
Christopher Corker's The Business and Technology of the Sheffield Armaments Industry, 1900-1930 (U of York, 2016) focuses on four in-depth case studies of John Brown, Cammell-Laird, Thomas Firth and Hadfields to examine the business and technology of the industry. It builds on the work of Tweedale and Trebilcock on She
Gustav Cederlof, "The Low-Carbon Contradiction: Energy Transition, Geopolitics, and the Infrastructural State in Cuba" (U California Press, 2023)
In the pursuit of socialism, Cuba became Latin America’s most oil-dependent economy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the country lost 86 percent of its crude oil supplies, resulting in a severe energy crisis. In the face of this shock, Cuba started to develop a low-carbon economy based on economic and social reform ra
James W. Cortada, "Inside IBM: Lessons of a Corporate Culture in Action" (Columbia Business School, 2023)
IBM was the world's leading provider of information technologies for much of the twentieth century. What made it so successful for such a long time, and what lessons can this iconic corporation teach present-day enterprises? James W. Cortada--a business historian who worked at IBM for many years--pinpoints the crucial
Stéphane Jettot, "Selling Ancestry: Family Directories and the Commodification of Genealogy in Eighteenth-Century Britain" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Often cited but rarely studied in their own right, family directories allow a reconsideration of how ancestry and genealogy became an object of widespread commercialization across the eighteenth century. These directories replaced the expensive, locally-produced, early modern artefacts (tombs, windowpanes, illuminated
Matthew Romaniello, "Enterprising Empires: Russia and Britain in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
In his new book Enterprising Empires: Russia and Britain in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia (Cambridge University Press), Matthew Romaniello examines the workings of the British Russia Company and the commercial entanglements of the British and Russian empires in the long eighteenth century. This innovative and highly reada
Robert Michael Morrissey, "People of the Ecotone: Environment and Indigenous Power at the Center of Early America" (U Washington Press, 2022)
By putting the Midwest at the center of Vast Early America, University of Illinois historian Robert Morrissey reconfigures the power dynamics in the story of North America during the era of colonialism. In his award-winning People of the Ecotone: Environment and Indigenous Power at the Center of Early America (U Washin
