Originally published in 1989 this study examines some new facets in the development of the iron industry in the USA between 1839 and 1921 through the study of an individaul form, namely the Thoms Iron Company, one of the leading merchant furnace companies. It charts the end of the anthracite iron age and the changes which brought about the advent of open-hearth steel and integrated steel works. The book discusses the problems the managers of the firm faced with the appearance of industrial innovations which tended to undermine their firm's very existence and provided a new set of optimal conditions necessary for the survival of the firm. It provides a clear understanding of the destructive forces of industrial innovation and the place of creative entrepreneurship in the survival of the firm.
Why did the industrial revolution take place in 18th century Britain and not elsewhere in Europe or Asia? Robert Allen argues that the British industrial revolution was a successful response to the global economy of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Current Geographical Publications (CGP) is a non-profit service to the scholarly community initiated in 1938 by the American Geographical Society of New York. Beginning in 2006, the format changed to include the tables of contents of current geographical journals. The journal titles listed link to web pages or PDF scans of the current issue's contents.
The coronavirus pandemic of 2019-20 and its associated global economic collapse has bluntly revealed that decision makers everywhere are ill-equipped to identify the innovative capacities of modern societies and, in particular, deploy managers to harness such capabilities. Getting the problem of management right is a voyage to the heart of human experience. Indeed, the perennial questions that haunt our existence almost invariably prompt answers that invoke conceptions of work, transformative effort and realisation of ideas. One way or another, all such endeavour requires management. It is often overlooked that more than any other discipline, management history brings into focus humanity’s most pressing questions. At the time of writing, these queries come with a disquieting urgency. What is management? How do its modern methods differ from those in pre-industrial societies? How does the management that emerged in Western Europe and North America in the nineteenth century differ from forms practiced in the twentieth? In what ways do Asian, African and South American societies have distinctive managerial philosophies? Perhaps most importantly, what don’t we know or don’t do very well? It is to these fundamental questions that the Palgrave Handbook of Management History speaks. The work’s 63 chapters – authored by 27 of the world’s leading management and business thinkers – explore virtually every aspect of management globally as well as across millennia. The series explores the theoretical contributions of classical Western business and management scholars (Adam Smith, Frederick Taylor, Elton Mayo, Peter Drucker, Alfred Chandler, etc.) as well as commentaries from critical theorists such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Hayden White. The Handbook is also practical. For example, its content addresses the day to day experience of management in ancient Greece and Rome as well as the contemporary approaches of China, France, South Africa, India, Denmark, Australia, South America, New Zealand and the Middle East. In short, the Palgrave Handbook provides students of economics, management, business theory and practice, and critical studies with a single comprehensive and in-depth point of reference.
