The Decline of British Industrial Hegemony

The Decline of British Industrial Hegemony

Author: Indrajit Ray

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-06-02

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1000596516

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Through two World Wars and the Great Depression, this book explores the turbulent history of colonial Indian industry in the period immediately prior to independence. Focusing on five major industries in Bengal - coal mining, iron-smelting, jute manufacturing, paper making and tea plantation – the book looks at the impact of the war efforts on production, employment and capital: some industries experienced rapid growth due to additional investment, others suffered due to the dislocation of markets. Moreover, by drawing lessons from the war economy (especially the dearth of various essential commodities including war materials), the colonial government took up various measures in the inter-war period to promote India’s domestic industries for the first time. Additionally, the book also argues that many of the expatriate firms in India became financially weak because of the Depression which paved the way for the ‘Indianisation’ of corporate houses. These elements were significant factors in the decline of British industrial hegemony in India and aided the de-colonisation process which followed. This book will be of interest to scholars of Indian economic history as well as those with wider interests in decolonisation, industrial history and the first half of the twentieth century.


Where is Britain Going? (Routledge Revivals)

Where is Britain Going? (Routledge Revivals)

Author: Leon Trotsky

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-04-03

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 1136242066

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First Published in 1926, Where is Britain Going? focuses on the historical factors and circumstances which were to define Britain’s development in the midst of social unrest at that time. The book considers the future of Britain in an age when the working classes were being driven into confrontation with the state under the impact of the world crisis of capitalism. Writing over eighty years ago, Trotsky concentrates on the decline of British imperialism in his analysis of the Bolshevik Revolution. In a brilliant polemic that exposes all the treachery of the Labour leaders in the year before the General strike, he recalls the revolutionary traditions of the working class and draws on the historical lessons of the English Civil War and Chartism. Rejecting the parliamentary road and stripping bare the pretensions of Fabian socialism, Where is Britain going? outlines perspectives of revolution which continue to retain their validity.


The British Aircraft Industry and American-led Globalisation

The British Aircraft Industry and American-led Globalisation

Author: Takeshi Sakade

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-12-09

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1000512185

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Sakade challenges the narrative that the focus of British manufacturing went "from Empire to Europe" and argues rather that, following the Second World War, the key relationship was in fact trans-Atlantic. There is a commonly accepted belief that, during the twentieth century, British manufacturing declined irreparably, that Britain lost its industrial hegemony. But this is too simplistic. In fact, in the decades after 1945, Britain staked out a new role for itself as a key participant in a US-led process of globalisation. Far from becoming merely a European player, the UK actually managed to preserve a key share in a global market, and the British defence industry was, to a large extent, successfully rehabilitated. Sakade returns to the original scholarly parameters of the decline controversy, and especially questions around post-war decline in the fields of high technology and the national defence industrial base. Using the case of the strategically critical military and civil aircraft industry, he argues that British industry remained relatively robust. A valuable read for historians of British aviation and more widely of 20th century British Industry.


International Manufacturing Strategies

International Manufacturing Strategies

Author: Per Lindberg

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 1997-12-31

Total Pages: 526

ISBN-13: 9780792380610

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Over the last twenty years, there has been an increasing number of factors that have placed the manufacturing strategies of companies and countries in a global context. This book reviews and addresses the global manufacturing strategy area through research in the four major economic areas of the world: Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia. International Manufacturing Strategies: Context, Content and Change is the result of a single major research project undertaken in twenty countries, focusing on the manufacturing strategies and practices in each, and uses research data to focus on factors specific to industrial countries or regions and those which are common across the group of countries or the entire sample The core of this book is a set of chapters reviewing individual countries. Each country is reviewed in a format with an overall common approach: the socio-economic background; the distinctive results for that country from the research and the link between the two. Most will be illustrated by a small case study of a company. Following this is an integrating review of the findings from various countries, the different trajectories followed, and the impact on external variables and the socioeconomic context on those. The final part of the book is devoted to new ideas and developments in functional areas and in manufacturing strategy that have been developed from the analysis conducted during the research.


The Secrets of Hegemony

The Secrets of Hegemony

Author: Tai-Yoo Kim

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-03-29

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 9811044163

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This book revisits the historically different paths to economic development that Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States followed at different time periods since the early modern period. Addressing the questions of how economic growth came about in these four countries and why sustained economic growth was achieved only by the two latter economic powers - Great Britain and the United States, it clearly highlights the long-term economic impact of the individual economic systems each country had developed. This discussion draws on two important variables in economic systems: whether its primary activity is agriculture, commerce, or manufacturing, and whether its productive system expands or simply reproduces. From this interpretive framework, the book suggests that the existing literature has not yet paid sufficient attention to the enduring impact on a nation’s long-term economic performance of their differing economic systems - simple agricultural reproduction system (Spain), expansive commercial reinvestment system (the Netherlands), and expansive industrial reproduction system (Great Britain and the United States). The book also demonstrates why sustained economic growth was viable only within an expansive industrial reproduction system, and what conditions Great Britain and the United States had to fulfill to create such an economic system in their specific historical contexts. It concludes by reflecting on the policy implications of the findings on current discussions concerning economic development within the global economy.


Dudley Docker

Dudley Docker

Author: R. P. T. Davenport-Hines

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2004-04-22

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9780521894005

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This is an exploration of the life of Dudley Docker (1862-1944), one of the most powerful businessmen of his era. It sketches the life and times of Docker, describes the deals he fixed and recounts the rise and fall of the companies he directed.


Industry and Development in Argentina

Industry and Development in Argentina

Author: Marcelo Rougier

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-02-27

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 1000838323

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This book explores the twists and turns in Argentina’s modern economic history and the debates that raged there around a problem common to all former colonies: how to achieve a level of economic growth for its population in a world characterized by unequal economic relations between the industrialized nations of the north and the commodity producers of the south. This new perspective examines the history of ideas surrounding industrialization and economic development in Argentina, drawing on a rigorous investigation of multiple sources. It demonstrates Argentina’s role as a laboratory for and disseminator of ideas that would eventually become the common property of all the developing world. Influential thinkers such as Raúl Prebisch and Aldo Ferrer, leading figures in twentieth century Latin American economic thought, developed important ideas such as unequal international trade relations, the promise and limits of Import Substitution Industrialization, the role of the state in the development of a national capitalism. These were the forerunners of similar concerns in other countries in Latin America and elsewhere in the world. The book will be of interest to historians, economists, sociologists of economic development, and related disciplines concerned with questions of global economic inequality.


Super Rich

Super Rich

Author: George Irvin

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-04-26

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 0745658873

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In the past 25 years, the distribution of income and wealth in Britain and the US has grown enormously unequal, far more so than in other advanced countries. The book, which is aimed at both an academic and a general audience, examines how this happened, starting with the economic shocks of the 1970s and the neo-liberal policies first applied under Thatcher and Reagan. In essence, growing inequality and economic instability is seen as driven by a US-style model of free-market capitalism that is increasingly deregulated and dominated by the financial sector. Using a wealth of examples and empirical data, the book explores the social costs entailed by relative deprivation and widespread income insecurity, costs which affect not just the poor but now reach well into the middle classes. Uniquely, the author shows how inequality, changing consumption patterns and global financial turbulence are interlinked. The view that growing inequality is an inevitable consequence of globalisation and that public finances must be squeezed is firmly rejected. Instead, it is argued that advanced economies need more progressive taxation to dampen fluctuations and to fund higher levels of social provision, taking the Nordic countries as exemplary. The broad political goal should be to return within a generation to the lower degree of income inequality which prevailed in Britain and the US during the years of post-war prosperity.


Exceptionalism and Industrialisation

Exceptionalism and Industrialisation

Author: Leandro Prados de la Escosura

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2004-06-17

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1107320135

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This 2004 book explores the question of British exceptionalism in the period from the Glorious Revolution to the Congress of Vienna. Leading historians examine why Great Britain emerged from years of sustained competition with its European rivals in a discernible position of hegemony in the domains of naval power, empire, global commerce, agricultural efficiency, industrial production, fiscal capacity and advanced technology. They deal with Britain's unique path to industrial revolution and distinguish four themes on the interactions between its emergence as a great power and as the first industrial nation. First, they highlight growth and industrial change, the interconnections between agriculture, foreign trade and industrialisation. Second, they examine technological change and, especially, Britain's unusual inventiveness. Third, they study her institutions and their role in facilitating economic growth. Fourth and finally, they explore British military and naval supremacy, showing how this was achieved and how it contributed to Britain's economic supremacy.