The Rise of Modern Business

Great Britain, the United States, Germany, Japan, and China

Third Edition, Revised and Updated

By Mansel G. Blackford

296 pp., 6.125 x 9.125, 3 figs., 5 maps, index

  • Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-5886-8
    Published: May 2008
  • E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-0020-8
    Published: July 2012
  • E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-8345-2
    Published: July 2012

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The Rise of Modern Business compares and analyzes the development of business and business institutions in several countries from the preindustrial era to the present. Paying close attention to connections between business development and political, social, and cultural changes, Blackford addresses both manufacturing and nonmanufacturing firms, small firms as well as big businesses. For this third edition, he updates his study in light of new scholarship, with special attention paid to the structural diversity of business firms and with a timely discussion about the reciprocal relationship between business and the environment. The business history of Germany is extensively updated, and there is entirely new coverage of the business history of China, a country whose growing political and economic prowess on the world stage demands the historical and contextual understanding of business scholars today.

About the Author

Mansel Blackford is professor of history at Ohio State University. He is author of a dozen books, including A History of Small Business in America (from the University of North Carolina Press) and Pathways to the Present: Development and Its Consequences in America's Pacific Possessions.
For more information about Mansel G. Blackford, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"Engaging and informative."--CHOICE

“This book is one that students will return to regularly to get their bearings in a broad field.”--Journal of American History

"A major and helpful analytical framework and a rich review of recent literature."--Choice

"An invaluable introduction to the rich variety of business experience in the leading capitalist economies. Its comparative approach pays enormous dividends, and the author has achieved that rarest of feats in combining analytical sophistication with accessibility to a wide audience."--Thomas K. McCraw, Harvard University