3i (Investors in Industry, and formerly the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation, etc.) is Britain's leading venture capital company. Founded in 1945 as a result of a combination of pressures and counter-pressures from political parties, Whitehall, the Bank of England, and the clearing banks, the organization has played a significant role in post-war investment banking and industrial development.
The first part of the book traces its history from the early years of post-war reconstruction and the role played by Piercy and Kinross, through the years of consolidation, to the higher-profile years of the change of name and style and the 1994 flotation. The second part offers an inside view of the workings of this unique institution - the controllers, 3i's role in developing MBOs, methods of assessing risk and return, its relationship with capital markets, etc.
During its first 50 years 3i has invested in numerous well known and successful companies - many of these are detailed in the text (British Caledonian, Oxford Instruments, Laura Ashley, etc.). The book is also elegantly and innovatively designed, making good use of the well known 3i cartoons.

Since its inception in the late 19th century, Britain's mail order industry both exploited and generated social networks in building its businesses. The common foundation of the sector was the agency system; Sales were made through catalogs held by agents, ordinary people in families, neighborhoods, pubs, clubs and workplaces. Through this agency system mail order firms in Britain were able to tap social networks both to build a customer base, but also to obtain vital information on credit worthiness.
In this, the first comprehensive history of the British mail order industry, the authors combine business and social history to fully explain the features and workings of this industry. They show how British general mail order industry firms such as Kay and Co., Empire Stores, Littlewoods, and Grattan grew from a range of businesses as diverse as watch sales or football pools. A range of business innovations and strategies were developed throughout the twentieth century, including technological development and labor process rationalization. Indeed, the sector was in the vanguard of many aspects of change from supply chain logistics to computerization. The social and gender profile of the home shopper also changed markedly as the industry developed. These changes are charted, from the male-dominated origins of the industry to the growing influence of women both within the firm and, more importantly, as the centre of the mail order market. The book also draws parallels and contrasts with the much more widely studied mail order industry of the United States.
The final section of the book examines the rise of internet shopping and the new challenges and opportunities it provided forthe mail order industry. Here the story is one of continuity and fracture as the established mail order companies struggle to adjust to a business environment which they had partly created, but which also rested on a new range of core competencies and technological and demographic change.

This collection of fresh, incisive scholarship, by some of the leading business historians, critically examines the nature of economic recovery in Britain in recent years. Covering the key issues for business history in this period, the book confronts the traditional literature on conclusions of relative decline, and monocausal, simplistic explanations. It provides an impressive range of studies forming a platform for a new debate on the nature of British business in the 20th century.
Themes include productivity, management, research and development, marketing, regional clusters and networks, industrial policy, the use of technology, and gender. Sector studies include newer, post-war hopefuls and successes including:
* aerospace,
* IT,
* retail,
* banking,
* overseas investment,
* the creative industries.
The book demonstrates that our understanding of the historic strengths and weaknesses of business in Britain, and the shifting balance between sectors of the economy, has until now been poorly understood, and that British business history needs a fundamental reappraisal.

Information Technology has become symbolic of modernity and progress almost since its inception. The nature and boundaries of IT have also meant that it has shaped, or become embedded within a wide range of other scientific, technological and economic developments. Governments, from the outset, saw the computer as a strategic technology, a keystone of economic development and an area where technology policy should be targeted. This was true for those economies interested in maintaining their technological and economic leadership, but also figured strongly in the developmental programmes of those seeking to modernise or catch up. So strong was the notion that IT policy should be the centre of economic strategy that predominant political economic ideologies have frequently been subverted or distorted to allow for special efforts to promote either the production or use of IT. This book brings together a series of country-based studies to examine, in depth, the nature and extent of IT policies as they have evolved from a complex historical interaction of politics, technology, institutions, and social and cultural factors. In doing so many key questions are critically examined. Where can we find successful examples of IT policy? Who has shaped policy? Who did governments turn to for advice in framing policy? Several chapters outline the impact of military influence on IT. What is the precise nature of this influence on IT development? How closely were industry leaders linked to government programs and to what extent were these programs, particularly those aimed at the generation of 'national champions', misconceived through undue special pleading? How effective were government personnel and politicians in assessing the merits of programs predicated on technological trajectories extrapolated from increasingly complex and specialised information? This book will be of interest to academics and graduate students of Management Studies, History, Economics, and Technology Studies, and Government and Corporate policy makers engaged with IT and Technology policy.

"Rivers and Society" explores the ways in which human/river relations have shaped important historical transformation processes. With examples ranging from explorations of classical agrarian civilizations such as the Indus, Angkor and Maya, to analyses of the role of water in the modernization process of countries such as Spain, Britain and Japan, the international contributors shed new light on the ways in which the key relationship between humans and water has given rise to new forms of social organization, new technologies and economic activities