Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev's famous "kitchen debate" in 1958 involved more than the virtues of American appliances. Both Nixon and Khrushchev recognized the political symbolism of the modern kitchen; the kind of technological innovation represented in this everyday context spoke to the political system that produced it. The kitchen connects the "big" politics of politicians and statesmen to the "small" politics of users and interest groups. Cold War Kitchen looks at the kitchen as material object and symbol, considering the politics and the practices of one of the most famous technological icons of the twentieth century. Defining the kitchen as a complex technological artifact as important as computers, cars, and nuclear missiles, the book examines the ways in which a range of social actors in Europe shaped the kitchen as both ideological construct and material practice. These actors--from manufacturers and modernist architects to housing reformers and feminists--constructed and domesticated the technological innovations of the postwar kitchen. The home became a "mediation junction" in which women users and others felt free to advise producers from the consumer's point of view. In essays illustrated by striking period photographs, the contributors to Cold War Kitchen consider such topics as Soviet consumers' ambivalent responses to the American dream kitchen argued over by Nixon and Khrushchev; the Frankfurter Kuche, a European modernist kitchen of the interwar period (and its export to Turkey when its designer fled the Nazis); and the British state-subsidized kitchen design so innovative that it was mistaken for a luxury American product. The concluding essays challenge the received wisdom of past interpretations of the kitchen debate.

This book explores the nineteenth century roots of globalisation through the activities of the enterprise network created by the Scottish merchant, William Mackinnon. It follows the rise of the family-led business group from its modest origins in Scotland to its transformation into the world's largest maritime and mercantile conglomerate, tracing the history of the various shipping firms within the group - including the British India, Netherlands India and Australasian United companies - and identifies the key factors behind its domination of coastal steamshipping around the Indian Ocean and into the western Pacific. It provides an analysis of the anatomy and dynamics of the enterprise network over time. The book also examines Mackinnon's relationship with the imperial statesman, Sir Henry Bartle Frere, which drew the network into the operations of British 'informal imperialism' in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and East-Central Africa regions, and eventually to its sponsorship of the ill-fated Imperial British East Africa Company. It breaks new ground in identifying the interplay of personal and business considerations behind Mackinnon's participation in the 'Scramble for Africa' in its combination of maritime history with business history and imperial history to contribute to the current debate over 'gentlemanly capitalism' and British overseas expansion. WINNER OF THE 2004 WADSWORTH PRIZE. JOINT WINNER OF THE 2004 SALTIRE SOCIETY RESEARCH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD. J. FORBES MUNRO is emeritus professor of international economic history, University of Glasgow

Based on unrestricted access to papers and personnel at BP, as well as numerous other sources, this second volume of BP's history aims to be an honest and comprehensive examination of the company in the period 1928-1954. Such a history inevitably touches on many different historical interests ranging from international relations to social, economic, political and military topics, primarily in Britain and the Middle East. The 1994 book includes penetrating insights into the direction and management of the company, the achievements and shortcomings of successive chairmen, and the relationship between the company and its major shareholder, the British Government. It also deals in detail with matters which have retained an aura of controversy and mystique long after their occurrence, most notably the international petroleum cartel which sought to control world oil markets, and the major international crisis arising from Iran's oil nationalisation.

In Private Empire Steve Coll investigates the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States, revealing the true extent of its power. ExxonMobil's annual revenues are larger than the economic activity in the great majority of countries. In many of the countries where it conducts business, ExxonMobil's sway over politics and security is greater than that of the United States embassy. In Washington, ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress and the White House than almost any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is a black box.
Private Empire pulls back the curtain, tracking the corporation's recent history and its central role on the world stage, beginning with the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 and leading to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The action spans the globe, moving from Moscow, to impoverished African capitals, Indonesia, and elsewhere in heart-stopping scenes that feature kidnapping cases, civil wars, and high-stakes struggles at the Kremlin. At home, Coll goes inside ExxonMobil's K Street office and corporation headquarters in Irving, Texas, where top executives in the "God Pod" (as employees call it) oversee an extraordinary corporate culture of discipline and secrecy.
The narrative is driven by larger than life characters, including corporate legend Lee "Iron Ass" Raymond, ExxonMobil's chief executive until 2005. A close friend of Dick Cheney's, Raymond was both the most successful and effective oil executive of his era and an unabashed skeptic about climate change and government regulation.. This position proved difficult to maintain in the face of new science and political change and Raymond's successor, current ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson, broke with Raymond's programs in an effort to reset ExxonMobil's public image. The larger cast includes countless world leaders, plutocrats, dictators, guerrillas, and corporate scientists who are part of ExxonMobil's colossal story.
The first hard-hitting examination of ExxonMobil, Private Empire is the masterful result of Coll's indefatigable reporting. He draws here on more than four hundred interviews; field reporting from the halls of Congress to the oil-laden swamps of the Niger Delta; more than one thousand pages of previously classified U.S. documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act; heretofore unexamined court records; and many other sources. A penetrating, newsbreaking study, Private Empire is a defining portrait of ExxonMobil and the place of Big Oil in American politics and foreign policy.

A unique look at Harvard Universitys early years, the impact of its first president, Henry Dunster and Harvard as a corporation Americas oldest. What principles are behind its amazing success?

In this magisterial study, Michael Smith explains how France left behind small-scale merchant capitalism for the large corporate enterprises that would eventually dominate its domestic economy and project French influence throughout the world. Arguing against the long-standing view that French economic and business development was crippled by missed opportunities and entrepreneurial failures, Smith presents a story of considerable achievement. French companies made major contributions to the Second Industrial Revolution of 1880 - 1930, especially in ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, electrochemicals, industrial gases, and motor vehicles. Rejecting the notion that France took a separate route to economic modernity, Smith argues that it tracked other industrial nations along a path dominated by large-scale production and corporate enterprise. Technological and organisational capabilities acquired by French companies prior to 1930 played a key role in the country's rapid economic recovery after World War II and its broader economic success in the second half of the 20th Century. Smith also addresses the distinctive characteristics of French economic and business development, including the pivotal role of the French State, the pervasive influence of French financiers, and the significance of labour conflict. This superb account is an invaluable contribution to business history and the history of modern France.

American Business Abroad: Ford on Six Continents documents the first sixty years of Ford Motor Company's international expansion. Ford Motor Company introduced Americans to the first affordable car. Based on Ford's extraordinary company archives, this book traces the company's rise as a multinational enterprise. Following the export of the sixth car produced by the company, Ford opened its first plant abroad in its second year of business and quickly expanded around the world, building a business that by the mid 1920s spanned six continents. It faced wars, nationalism, numerous government restrictions and all the perils of operating across borders. First published in 1964, this book has lasting value in reminding readers of the long and uneven path of globalization. This new edition includes a new introduction by the author examining the impact and legacy of the study. It remains a major contribution to global economic history. In addition, Ford's history offers useful lessons today for both participants in the global economy and students of international business.

Free-standing companies are a special type of multinational enterprise that proliferated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; some persisted into later years; few remain today. Many were headquartered in the United Kingdom, but important free-standing companies had headquarters in the other capital-rich nations. This book explores the history of the free-standing company, the theoretical implications of the concept, comparisons with the 'American model' multinational enterprise, the validity of the concept, and its contribution to the understanding of modern economic history. Leading international scholars - economists and historians - provide evidence on and analysis of the operations of free-standing companies in different parts of the world. This is the first book on the much-discussed topic of free-standing companies. The volume will provide a rich quarry for those interested in world economic history, regional and national economic histories, in the spread of international business, and in the different forms that multinational enterprises take through time.

This classic work, first published in 1958, is a seminal text in international business history. This new, substantially updated and revised edition is being published on the fortieth anniversary of the first edition. Features of the revised edition include: * a new introduction * a new concluding chapter * amendments and additions to the original text * a new statistical appendix which examines the main features and significance of the US penetration of UK industry over the past four decades. Professor Dunning is one of the most internationally renowned and respected scholars in international business research. The updated version of this highly regarded book is a major contribution to studies in international business history.

Negotiation is by far the most frequently used device to resolve conflicts and claims. This book combines a lawyer's legal training and experience with keen interpersonal skills that achieve tangible results. The Lawyer's Guide to Negotiation dispels some long-held negotiation myths while offering lawyers a consistent and effective approach to establish a framework for any bargaining challenge.

Now fully updated, the classic account of how a bottle of sweetened caramel-colored soda water became synonymous with American capitalism
For God, Country and Coca-Cola is the unauthorized history of the great American soft drink and the company that makes it. From its origins as a patent medicine in Reconstruction Atlanta through its rise as the dominant consumer beverage of the American century, the story of Coke is as unique, tasty, and effervescent as the drink itself. With vivid portraits of the entrepreneurs who founded the company-and of the colorful cast of hustlers, swindlers, ad men, and con men who have made Coca-Cola the most recognized trademark in the world-this is business history at its best: in fact, "The Real Thing."