Originally published in 1935, this book presents the origins and structure of the industrial 'quasi-monopoly' in Germany in contrast to similar organizations in contemporary England. Levy discusses industrial cartels in a variety of fields, from film to steel, and the shift in public opinion on the acceptability of monopolies. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in German economic or industrial history.

2020 Book of the Year * International Labor History Association Honorable Mention * Philip Taft Labor History Prize This rich history details the bitter, deep-rooted conflict between industrial behemoth International Harvester and the uniquely radical Farm Equipment Workers union. The Long Deep Grudge makes clear that class warfare has been, and remains, integral to the American experience, providing up-close-and-personal and long-view perspectives from both sides of the battle lines. International Harvester - and the McCormick family that largely controlled it - garnered a reputation for bare-knuckled union-busting in the 1880s, but in the 20th century also pioneered sophisticated union-avoidance techniques that have since become standard corporate practice. On the other side the militant Farm Equipment Workers union, connected to the Communist Party, mounted a vociferous challenge to the cooperative ethos that came to define the American labor movement after World War II. This evocative account, stretching back to the nineteenth century and carried through to the present, reads like a novel. Biographical sketches of McCormick family members, union officials and rank-and-file workers are woven into the narrative, along with anarchists, jazz musicians, Wall Street financiers, civil rights crusaders, and mob lawyers. It touches on pivotal moments and movements as wide-ranging as the Haymarket "riot," the Flint sit-down strikes, the Memorial Day Massacre, the McCarthy-era anti-communist purges, and America's late 20th-century industrial decline. Both Harvester and the FE are now gone, but this largely forgotten clash helps explain the crisis of yawning inequality now facing US workers, and provides alternative models from the past that can instruct and inspire those engaged in radical, working class struggles today.

From its humble beginnings as a fur-trading outpost, Chicago has become one of the foremost centers of world finance and trade. With its blue-collar work ethic and an economic history that extends into virtually every segment of American industry, it certainly lives up to its moniker as the City That Works. Drawing on the award-winning "Encyclopedia of Chicago", Janice L. Reiff has compiled a unique history of work in the "Windy City". Beginning with an overview of the city's commercial development, "Chicago Business and Industry" considers how key industries shaped - and were shaped by - both the local and global economies. The city's phenomenal population growth, its proximity to water, and its development of railroads made Chicago one of the most productive markets for lumber and grain throughout the nineteenth century. The region's once-booming steel industry, on the other hand, suffered a dramatic decline in the second half of the twentieth century, when already weakened demand met with increasing international competition. "Chicago Business and Industry" chronicles the Chicago region's changing fortunes from its beginning. Reiff has compiled and updated essays from the Encyclopedia covering the city's most historically famous - and infamous - companies, from the Union Stock Yard to Montgomery Ward to the Board of Trade. The book concludes with a historical account of labor types and issues in the city, with attention to such topics as health-care workers, unemployment, and unionization. Today, Groupon and a host of other high-tech firms have led some experts to christen Chicago the Silicon Valley of the Midwest. Reiff's new introduction takes account of these and other recent trends. Engaging, accessible, and packed with fascinating facts, "Chicago Business and Industry" invites readers into the history and diversity of work in the city, helping them understand how Chicago became Chicago.

William Hoey (1849 1919) was a magistrate in Lucknow, India when this book was published by the American Missionary Press in 1880. At the time, Lucknow was the seventh largest city in the British Empire, and it was the capital of the province that had most recently come under British rule. Hoey's monograph captures the details of trade in the city and surrounding regions at this time of change. Part 1 outlines the prominent features of trade in the area and includes tables of imports and exports. Part 2 focuses on Lucknow specifically, and contains the author's discussion of the impact of British rule on the city. The third part is a detailed A-Z of every trade, including information on production, prices and profit, and the work concludes with an extensive glossary of Indian terms. The level of detail in this work makes it an invaluable historical document.

The Miners' Unions of Northumberland and Durham by the historian Edward Welbourne was first published in 1923. It was based on a study which had previously been awarded the Thirlwall Prize, the Seeley Medal for History, and the Gladstone Prize in the year 1921 at the University of Cambridge. The book presents an historical analysis of the charged social conditions and conflicts that shaped the coal mining industry in the north of England from the middle of the eighteenth to the end of the nineteenth century.

First published in 1934, and reissued in a second edition in 1936, this volume by Thomas Hennell was intended to collect and arrange some of the relics of past generations of farmers, farmyards and traditional agricultural methods. In addition to sixteen detailed and descriptive chapters on the changing nature of the farm, the volume offers an abundance of illustrations and diagrams by the author, depicting a variety of farmyard implements and pastoral scenes from across the British Isles.

The Growth of English Industry and Commerce, published in its first edition in 1882, was a large-scale economic study by the historian William Cunningham (1849-1919). The ambitious work ultimately grew to encompass two volumes, divided into three parts, and reissued over a period of more than forty years in several revised and expanded editions. This book contains the 1907 fourth edition of the second part of Volume II, dealing with laissez faire in commerce. It covers the period of economic history from about the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to the middle of the nineteenth century.

The Growth of English Industry and Commerce, published in its first edition in 1882, was a large-scale economic study by the historian William Cunningham (1849-1919). The ambitious work ultimately grew to encompass two volumes, divided into three parts, and reissued over a period of more than forty years in several revised and expanded editions. This book contains the fifth edition of Volume I, published in 1910. It covers the period of economic history during the Early and Middle Ages.

This book by George F. Bosworth was originally published in 1915 and was the first title to appear in the Cambridge Industrial and Commercial Series. Intended for use in schools, the volume traces the development of human ingenuity in shipping from the early dug-out boat to the launching of the Aquitania. Successive chapters provide a detailed account of the work of the Royal Navy and dockyards and also consider the fishing industry and ports in Great Britain, lighthouses and lightships, their construction, distribution, and value to the shipping industry. Great seaports and their industries, together with the history and condition of the Cinque Ports are treated in the last chapters.

Widely credited as having established the term 'industrial revolution' as a historical concept, Arnold Toynbee (1852 83) was among the most outspoken political economists of the nineteenth century. This volume is a collection of his Balliol lectures and other public addresses, originally published posthumously in 1884. The lectures, often humorous, discuss developments in contemporary political economy, the views of other commentators, and the impact on society of this new discipline; viewed as a collection, they represent one of the first calls for economic history as an academic subject to be studied separately from political history. Given during the early 1880s, the popular addresses treat some of the most important economic topics of the day, from the role of trade unions to the relationship between wages and production. Also included in this book are a preface by the author's wife, and a memoir by his friend and colleague, Benjamin Jowett.

Florence Kelley (1859 1932) was a committed socialist and political reformer who campaigned against child labour in the United States. In 1899 she became the leader of the National Consumers' League, an anti-sweatshop and pro-minimum wage pressure group which she supported until her death. This volume, first published in 1914, describes her views on the problems facing American society due to the expansion of industry. Kelley discusses the negative effects of rapid industrialisation on the American urban working class, in terms of the effects on the family, on the health of workers, on the education of the working class; and discusses the economic 'morality' of controlling the means of production. She also suggests possible legislation to mitigate these problems, some of which later passed into federal law. This volume provides a vivid description of the lives of America's urban working class and illustrates the extent of contemporary industrialisation in America.

A major 2008 study of the role of women in the labour market of Industrial Revolution Britain. It is well known that men and women usually worked in different occupations, and that women earned lower wages than men. These differences are usually attributed to custom but Joyce Burnette here demonstrates instead that gender differences in occupations and wages were instead largely driven by market forces. Her findings reveal that rather than harming women competition actually helped them by eroding the power that male workers needed to restrict female employment and minimising the gender wage gap by sorting women into the least strength-intensive occupations. Where the strength requirements of an occupation made women less productive than men, occupational segregation maximised both economic efficiency and female incomes. She shows that women's wages were then market wages rather than customary and the gender wage gap resulted from actual differences in productivity.

In May 1851, the doors opened on the Great Exhibition, a celebration of British industry and international trade that spawned numerous imitations across the globe. The scale of the exhibition was immense and publishers responded quickly to the demand for catalogues, guidebooks and souvenir volumes. In a marketplace swamped with exhibition literature, Tallis' three-volume History and Description of the Crystal Palace, originally published in 1852 and reproduced here in the 1854 edition, quickly established itself as the definitive history for middle-class readers. Illustrated with high-quality steel-engraved plates of the most popular and eye-catching exhibits, Tallis' book provides a fascinating contemporary account of this cultural and commercial highlight of the Victorian age, and reveals the mind-set of a society at the peak of its imperial power. Volume 1 describes the preparations for the exhibition and focuses particularly on the 'foreign and colonial' departments and the decorative arts.

In May 1851, the doors opened on the Great Exhibition, a celebration of British industry and international trade that spawned numerous imitations across the globe. The scale of the exhibition was immense and publishers responded quickly to the demand for catalogues, guidebooks and souvenir volumes. In a marketplace swamped with exhibition literature, Tallis' three-volume History and Description of the Crystal Palace, originally published in 1852 and reproduced here in the 1854 edition, quickly established itself as the definitive history for middle-class readers. Illustrated with high-quality steel-engraved plates of the most popular and eye-catching exhibits, Tallis' book provides a fascinating contemporary account of this cultural and commercial highlight of the Victorian age, and reveals the mind-set of a society at the peak of its imperial power. Volume 2 describes exhibits including toys, fabrics and printing for the blind, and assesses the influence of the Great Exhibition on art and science.

In May 1851, the doors opened on the Great Exhibition, a celebration of British industry and international trade that spawned numerous imitations across the globe. The scale of the exhibition was immense and publishers responded quickly to the demand for catalogues, guidebooks and souvenir volumes. In a marketplace swamped with exhibition literature, Tallis' three-volume History and Description of the Crystal Palace, originally published in 1852 and reproduced here in the 1854 edition, quickly established itself as the definitive history for middle-class readers. Illustrated with high-quality steel-engraved plates of the most popular and eye-catching exhibits, Tallis' book provides a fascinating contemporary account of this cultural and commercial highlight of the Victorian age, and reveals the mind-set of a society at the peak of its imperial power. Volume 3 describes displays of machinery and the 'Ladies' Department', the close of the exhibition, and the Palace's new site in Sydenham.

This book was originally published in 1954. Robert Estienne was born in Paris in the early years of the sixteenth century, the son of a successful printer-bookseller. He became a printer himself, and one distinguished not only for the quality of his printing, but also for his scholarship. He was the most outstanding figure of the Parisian booktrade at the moment when that trade was one of the most important agencies of the various intellectual movements which we summarise as 'The Renaissance'. Estienne was not only a classical but also a biblical scholar and editor (he is remembered as much for his editions of the Bible as for the beauty of his Cicero or for his use of the Garamond Greek types). Mrs Armstrong gives a full-length historical study of an important and admirable figure.

Privateering was a form of legal private warfare at sea in which individuals who possessed suitable ships took the opportunity offered by a war to plunder enemy commerce. In this study of privateering during the Elizabethan war with Spain, which was originally published in 1966, Dr Andrews shows that it was closely connected with trade, in particular having a stimulating effect on oceanic commerce and that it was at the time the main form of English maritime warfare. Dr Andrews begins with an account of how privateering became legal and how it was organised. He then examines the various types of venture, describing the sort of people who took part and showing how profitable it was for some, particularly the bigger merchants and the professional seamen. Two contemporary narratives are included. Finally, Dr Andrews studies the role privateering played in overseas expansion.

At the periphery of the Chinese empire, a group of innovative entrepreneurs built companies that dominated the Chinese salt trade and created thousands of jobs in the Sichuan region. From its dramatic expansion in the early nineteenth century to its decline on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s, salt production in Zigong was one of the largest and one of the only indigenous large-scale industries in China. Madeleine Zelin recounts the history of the salt industry to reveal a fascinating chapter in China's history and provide new insight into the forces and institutions that shaped Chinese economic and social development independent of Western or Japanese influence. Her book challenges long-held beliefs that social structure, state extraction, the absence of modern banking, and cultural bias against business precluded industrial development in China. Zelin details the novel ways in which Zigong merchants mobilized capital through financial-industrial networks. She describes how entrepreneurs spurred growth by developing new technologies, capturing markets, and building integrated business organizations. Without the state establishing and enforcing rules, Zigong businessmen were free to regulate themselves, utilize contracts, and shape their industry. However, this freedom came at a price, and ultimately the merchants suffered from the underdevelopment of a transportation infrastructure, the political instability of early-twentieth-century China, and the absence of a legislative forum to develop and codify business practices. Zelin's analysis of the political and economic contexts that allowed for the rise and fall of the salt industry also considers why its success did not contribute to "industrial takeoff" during that period in China. Based on extensive research, Zelin's work offers a comprehensive study of the growth of a major Chinese industry and resituates the history of Chinese business within the larger story of worldwide industrial development.

In 1925, the three leading chemical firms in Germany - BASF, Bayer, and Hoechst - merged, together with some smaller firms, to become IG Farben. IG Farben became, like no other firm, synonymous with the participation of German industry in the most heinous crimes of the Nazi regime. This book deals in depth with one of IG Farben s leading factories, Hoechst, during the Third Reich. On the basis of long and meticulous archival research, including previously inaccessible company records, the author tries to describe and analyze the relationship between management and employees and the Nazi party and its organizations. The author shows the exclusion and persecution of employees, particularly Jewish employees. He traces the extent of Hoechst s involvement in the exploitation of forced labor, and its active participation in human experiments in several concentration camps. Throughout, he tries to shed light on the motivations of those responsible for this conduct.

The wool market was extremely important to the English medieval economy and wool dominated the English export trade from the late thirteenth century to its decline in the late fifteenth century. Wool was at the forefront of the establishment of England as a European political and economic power and this 2007 volume was the first study of the medieval wool market in over 20 years. It investigates in detail the scale and scope of advance contracts for the sale of wool; the majority of these agreements were formed between English monasteries and Italian merchants, and the book focuses on the data contained within them. The pricing structures and market efficiency of the agreements are examined, employing practices from modern finance. A detailed case study of the impact of entering into such agreements on medieval English monasteries is also presented, using the example of Pipewell Abbey in Northamptonshire.

The industrial revolution transformed the productive power of societies. It did so by vastly increasing the individual productivity, thus delivering whole populations from poverty. In this new account by one of the world's acknowledged authorities the central issue is not simply how the revolution began but still more why it did not quickly end. The answer lay in the use of a new source of energy. Pre-industrial societies had access only to very limited energy supplies. As long as mechanical energy came principally from human or animal muscle and heat energy from wood, the maximum attainable level of productivity was bound to be low. Exploitation of a new source of energy in the form of coal provided an escape route from the constraints of an organic economy but also brought novel dangers. Since this happened first in England, its experience has a special fascination, though other countries rapidly followed suit.

The industrial revolution transformed the productive power of societies. It did so by vastly increasing the individual productivity, thus delivering whole populations from poverty. In this new account by one of the world's acknowledged authorities the central issue is not simply how the revolution began but still more why it did not quickly end. The answer lay in the use of a new source of energy. Pre-industrial societies had access only to very limited energy supplies. As long as mechanical energy came principally from human or animal muscle and heat energy from wood, the maximum attainable level of productivity was bound to be low. Exploitation of a new source of energy in the form of coal provided an escape route from the constraints of an organic economy but also brought novel dangers. Since this happened first in England, its experience has a special fascination, though other countries rapidly followed suit.

This innovative study adopts a distinct perspective on both the industrial revolution and nineteenth-century British culture. It investigates why inventors rose to heroic stature and popular acclaim in Victorian Britain, attested by numerous monuments, biographies and honours, and contends there was no decline in the industrial nation's self-esteem before 1914. In a period notorious for hero-worship, the veneration of inventors might seem unremarkable, were it not for their previous disparagement and the relative neglect suffered by their twentieth-century successors. Christine MacLeod argues that inventors became figureheads of various nineteenth-century factions, from economic and political liberals to impoverished scientists and radical artisans, who deployed their heroic reputation, not least to challenge the aristocracy's hold on power and the militaristic national identity that bolstered it. Although this was a challenge that ultimately failed, its legacy of ideas about invention, inventors, and the history of the industrial revolution remains highly influential.

Now that services account for such a dominant part of economic activity, it has become apparent that achieving high levels of productivity in the economy requires high levels of productivity in services. This book, first published in 2006, offers a major reassessment of Britain's comparative productivity performance over the last 150 years. Whereas in the mid-nineteenth century Britain had higher productivity than the United States and Germany, by 1990 both countries had overtaken Britain. The key to achieving high productivity was the 'industrialisation' of market services, which involved both the serving of business and the provision of mass-market consumer services in a more business like fashion. Comparative productivity varied with the uneven spread of industrialised service sector provision across sectors. Stephen Broadberry provides a quantitative overview of these trends, together with a qualitative account of developments within individual sectors, including shipping, railways, road and air transport, telecommunications, wholesale and retail distribution, banking, and finance.