The essays in this volume consider the involvement of business corporations and of individual businessmen in the politics of the 1930s and 1940s: in the move away from the market and also from democracy, towards state control and authoritarianism, including the massive intervention of the state in property rights. How far did businesses attempt to guide this intervention for their own purposes, and to what extent did they succeed? This debate deals, centrally, with the role of German business, of banks, of industrial corporations, and of small tradesmen in the Nazi regime. An older discussion of how they may have facilitated the Nazi takeover has been supplemented here by an investigation into how they made the regime's policies possible, and the extent to which the profit motive drove them to participate - with sometimes more, sometimes less enthusiasm - in the politics of inhumanity. Such discussion has been given further impetus by legal action, initially in the United States, in the form of class action suits on behalf of the victims of Nazism. What do such legal and political debates mean for business history? What are the current responsibilities of business facing the consequences of historical action? And what lessons should be learned concerning the ethics of business behaviour? The contributions to this volume were originally presented as papers at a conference organised by the Society for European Business History in Paris in November 1998.

The Swiss population is called upon to participate actively in political decision-making processes through regular campaigns. These campaigns are often concerned with issues that heat up the emotions and lead to ideological battles. Swiss campaign posters, which have influenced opinion making since the beginning of the 20th century, bear testimony to direct democracy. This special form of political propaganda-prominently associated with Switzerland-is a sensitive indicator of socio-political moods and reflects both national mentalities and global tendencies. Yes! No! Posters for Democracy reveals the visual argumentation strategies and rhetorical approaches that have shaped the Swiss campaign poster from 1918 to the present. Cliched exaggerations, undifferentiated simplifications, a repertoire of drastic motifs and abridged slo- gans correspond to the laws of the medium, which is oriented towards a manipulative appeal to the masses. Appeals to a sense of unity focus primarily on emotionalization, hardly on rational enlightenment. Subtly condensed messages or a graphically innovative language are hardly to be found in Swiss campaign posters. And yet many renowned designers created works that have inscribed themselves in the collective visual memory of the Swiss population and became icons of Swiss poster design.

Ist die Freigabe der weichen oder auch der harten Drogen ein Weg aus der Sackgasse der heutigen Drogenpolitik? Kann man den Suchtigen helfen, indem man ihnen das Rauschgift auf Rezept oder zumindest Ersatzdrogen wie Methadon gibt? Ein Psychiater (R. Renggli) und ein Historiker (J. Tanner) versuchen, diese Fragen zu beantworten, indem sie die Erfahrungen mit der Drogenprohibition in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart untersuchen und die derzeitige Drogentherapie auf den Prufstand stellen. Zusatzlich haben sie einige Drogenabhangige gebeten, ihren Weg in die Sucht und ihre Therapieerfahrungen zu schildern. Herausgekommen ist eine spannende und kritische Bilanz des Drogenproblems und ein leidenschaftliches Pladoyer fur eine liberalere Drogenpolitik. Zum Nachschlagen enthalt das Buch eine Zeittafel zur Drogengeschichte und ein Kompendium der gebrauchlichsten Rauschgifte mit Angaben zu ihren Wirkungen und Gefahren."