For more than ten years, John Steele Gordon has written the widely read "The Business of America" column in "American Heritage" magazine. Marked by a combination of erudition, wit, and eloquence, Gordon's stories have celebrated the high points, and occasional low points, in the history of business in this country, from colonial days to the present. Now, the best of his mini-histories have been gathered in one volume. As much as each stands on its own, together they gain in significance as they go beyond mere business to present an intriguing lens on the broad sweep of American history. Gordon deftly connects the past with the present as he compares Frederick Philipse's successful cornering of the wampum market in 1666 with the Hunt brothers' failed attempt to corner the silver market in 1979. He looks anew at famous industrialists like Cornelius Vanderbilt and Henry Ford, and uncovers little-remembered heroes such as Oliver Evans, the founding father of the American industrial revolution, and Samuel Slater, who launched the textile industry in this country. He revels alike in the stories of philanthropist Peter Cooper, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, and the father of television syndication, Desi Arnaz. Gordon reveals how broad trends have developed (government debt and inflation, for example) and how specific words (boondoggle, pork barrel) have entered our language. He even tells the story of America's greatest cheese, Liederkranz, now lost forever. In addition to being a superb historian, John Steele Gordon is a great storyteller. Surveying almost 400 years of enterprise on this continent, "The Business of America" makes invaluable connections between eras and allows us a new appreciation of the richness of the American story.

Today, in a world in which news flashes around the globe in an instant, time lags are inconceivable. In the mid-nineteenth century, communication between the United States and Europe -- the center of world affairs -- was only as quick as the fastest ship could cross the Atlantic, making the United States isolated and vulnerable. But in 1866, the Old and New Worlds were united by the successful laying of a cable across the Atlantic. John Steele Gordon's book chronicles this extraordinary achievement -- the brainchild of American businessman Cyrus Field and one of the greatest engineering feats of the nineteenth century. An epic struggle, it required a decade of effort, numerous failed attempts, millions of dollars in capital, a near disaster at sea, the overcoming of seemingly insurmountable technological problems, and uncommon physical, financial, and intellectual courage. Bringing to life an overlooked story in the annals of technology, John Steele Gordon sheds fascinating new light on this American saga that literally changed the world.

This comprehensive overview of the history of computing and its industry, and of commercial applications of the computer also outlines the history of how computing operations were managed within American companies. Based on extensive research in the contemporary business literature, this work is one of the few which looks at computing as business history, and it is the first to look at the broad scope of computing from the perspective of the business historian. The work is also directed at business managers to help them appreciate and understand the uses of the computer in their firms.

While we have been preoccupied with the latest i-gadget from Apple and with Google's ongoing expansion, we may have missed something: the fundamental transformation of whole firms and industries into giant information-processing machines. Today, more than eighty percent of workers collect and analyze information (often in digital form) in the course of doing their jobs. This book offers a guide to the role of information in modern business, mapping the use of information within work processes and tracing flows of information across supply-chain management, product development, customer relations, and sales. The emphasis is on information itself, not on information technology. Information, overshadowed for a while by the glamour and novelty of IT, is the fundamental component of the modern corporation. In Information and the Modern Corporation, longtime IBM manager and consultant James Cortada clarifies the differences among data, facts, information, and knowledge and describes how the art of analytics has all but eliminated decision making based on gut feeling, replacing it with fact-based decisions. He describes the working style of "road warriors," whose offices are anywhere their laptops and cell phones are and whose deep knowledge of a given topic becomes their medium of exchange. Information is the core of the modern enterprise, and the use of information defines the activities of a firm. This essential guide shows managers and employees better ways to leverage information--by design and not by accident.

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Book Description
Joe Wilson was that rare business leader who, like Henry Ford before him or Bill Gates since, literally changed the world in which he lived. Wilson's company, Xerox Corporation, introduced the first one-piece, plain paper photocopier in 1959, dramatically altering the way in which business was done and becoming so culturally ingrained that the term for photocopying is "Xeroxing."
Yet Wilson was much more than just one of the twentieth century's most talented and accomplished business executives. Decades before a sense of social responsibility was considered vital to the success of a corporation, Joe Wilson was a driving force behind gender and racial equality, labor-management harmony, and the need for big business to understand and address the failures of our overall society.
Joe Wilson and the Creation of Xerox is the first book to tell the story of this deeply principled and talented leader. Written by Charles Ellis, the globally renowned business strategist and author of the investment classic Winning the Loser's Game, this inspirational and vastly entertaining book details:
* The determination and entrepreneurial drive of Joe Wilson as he transformed the brilliant invention of Chester Carlson from near-certain oblivion to ubiquitous xerography
* The early growth years of Xerox—then called Haloid—and the programs Joe Wilson put in place to hire the most promising employees and seamlessly "retire" those who didn't share his vision and work ethic
* The many years of uncertainty and near-defeat through which Wilson led the team he was recruiting to create the company and the great products that drove Xerox's profits consistently upward at a faster rate for a longer number of years than any other company
* The legendary 914 copier, and how Wilson and other company executives bet their futures and fortunes on the unproven product that would soon make Xerox a household name
Wilson's hands-on work with minority leaders to provide education and opportunity to young African- Americans during the racially explosive 1960s
The transition years, and how Joe Wilson carefully relinquished control of Xerox while remaining intimately involved in both its day-to-day and long-term growth
In a business world in which intense competition is the norm, with old-fashioned integrity often the first casualty, Joe Wilson's life and legacy have established a gold standard of leadership ethics and excellence. Joe Wilson and the Creation of Xerox tells Wilson's story, from struggling college graduate to esteemed business leader, and provides a success template that will be valuable for business leaders of every type, in every industry.
From Publishers Weekly
Transforming family-owned Haloid Corp., which struggled in the shadow of hometown behemoth Eastman Kodak, into the globally recognized Xerox is an amazing accomplishment. But as Ellis's biography of Joe Wilson attests, Wilson's achievements ranged more widely and went much deeper than many gave him credit for. Ellis, author of 11 books and former financial industry consultant offers a heartfelt, if not artful, telling of the CEO's life story. He contends that Wilson embodied all of the qualities that leadership management books celebrate: integrity, foresight and the ability to inspire people to perform. He credits these attributes to helping Wilson so spectacularly realize his vision for his company; its employees; his alma mater, the University of Rochester; and the city and people of Rochester, N.Y. Ellis's telling starts off slow and is initially quite repetitive. But once Xerox is finally born, after years of setbacks, the story picks up. The real purpose for the detailed buildup appears toward the end, when credit for the last 20-odd years of corporate strife and ultimate success is given to the wrong person, Wilson's best friend and the company's corporate counsel. At that point, it becomes clear why Ellis was compelled to write this book so long after the company's rise and its true founder's demise. (Sept.)
From Booklist
In Copies in Seconds (2005) David Owen told the story of Chester Carlson, the lone inventor of the Xerox machine. Here, Ellis creates a portrait of Joe Wilson (1909-71), the CEO of Xerox, who took the invention to fruition. An even-tempered man with impeccable values and enormous patience, Wilson took on an incredible risk backing a completely untested technology, which paid off only after decades of tireless work. When office workers embraced the technology, copying everything in sight, the Xerox copy machine became one of the most lucrative inventions of the twentieth century. But Wilson wasn't just about making money; he was one of the first business leaders to become personally involved in civil rights, hiring African American workers when most other companies effectively locked them out of jobs. Wilson remained humble even as others around him took credit for Xerox's success, and he passed on quietly just as the company began to lose its way. Ellis' account is a shining example of how honest and compassionate leadership can create profits and benefit the community at the same time.
David Siegfried
Book Dimension
length: (cm)23.4 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)16.1

This is a full-length history of the Western Electric Company, which was the manufacturing arm of the Bell System. As manufacturer in the communications revolutions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Western Electric made products that accelerated society's pace, such as telegraphs, telephones, an early computing machine, radios, radar and transistors. Western's history offers numerous examples of the difference between innovation and implementation. The aftermath of Western's 1882 acquisition by Bell Telephone, for instance, reveals vertical integration as a lengthy process rather than a single event. Ironically, although Western transformed business worldwide with innovations in areas such as quality control and industrial psychology, the company was slow to implement these innovations itself. Western's dual role as captive supplier for a regulated monopoly and as government contractor led to its most rapid change, in the area of civil rights.

《世界现代设计史》共分九章，对世界现代设计史的源流、发展及现状进行通论式的阐述，描述世界现代设计史上的各个时期重要流派、重要人物、重要作品，展现世界现代设计史的基本轮廓、构建基本框架。

外国商人，晚清时称之为洋商。洋商在上海的贸易活动，远可追溯至唐天宝十年（公元751年），即使从清道光二十三年（1843年）上海开埠算起，他们在上海的贸易活动也长达160余年；其历史可谓源远流长。但由于解放后几十年我国对外经济贸易没有提到应有的地位，导致对洋商研究很冷落，不但研究者寥寥，研究成果也不多。
20世纪90年代，随着国家对外开放的不断发展和加入世贸组织，对外经济贸易在国民经济中的地位越来越重要。因之在经济、金融、贸易领域，与外商来往频繁，开始引起了研究者的关注，并把对洋商的研究提升为重要课题。
“以史为鉴，可以知得失。”系统、深入地研究上海开埠以来的涉外经济史，可以为推进上海对外开放，进一步发展上海的外向型经济，起到很好的借鉴作用。为此我们从2002年开始编写本书，历时六年，于2007年定稿付梓。全书约100万字，分9篇37章141节（另附录3篇），插图150幅，附表142份，较完整地勾画了上海洋商百年的发展轨迹。
《洋商史》系在我主持编写的《上海对外经济贸易志》过程中，积累3000余万字的资料，2100幅历史图照的基础上，又从外贸系统搜集了大量的中外文洋商史料，本书的编撰工作可谓集众人之智慧。《洋商史》所描述的从上海洋商企业的起源到上海解放后洋商企业的逐渐消失；从上海洋商开设进出口贸易洋行起始，发展到创办涵盖各行各业的工业、商业、航运业、公共事业、文化事业；其时间跨度之长，洋商企业行业之齐全，内容之系统、全面，资料之翔实，图片之稀有，可以说是弥足珍贵。上海是近代中国的窗口，在与洋商的交往中，是中国的缩影，从这个意义上讲，本书是中国第一部完整的洋商史。它的问世，我想对中国对外贸易史、中国近代史，以及外交史的研究，都是有所裨益的。

Das Buch analysiert die zentrale Rolle von Medien, Telekommunikation und Informationstechnologie als Antriebsfaktoren auf dem Weg in eine digitale Wirtschaft: der Internet-A-konomie. Schon im Jahr 2005 wird die HAlfte der deutschen BevAlkerung online sein. Die in wesentlichen Teilen A1/4berarbeitete dritte Auflage des Buches bezieht die aktuellen Entwicklungen des dynamischen Marktes ein. In der Neuauflage werden insbesondere die Themen A-konomie der Aufmerksamkeit und Elektronic Commerce erweitert und fortgefA1/4hrt. Auch der umfangreiche Datenanhang, der die wichtigsten europAischen Kennziffern liefert, wurde auf den neuesten Stand gebracht. Mit diesem Konzept und der internationalen Einbindung steht das Buch konkurrenzlos da. Die zukunftsbezogene Analyse macht es zu einem unverzichtbaren Standardwerk fA1/4r Industrie und Wissenschaft.

Eli Heckscher (1879-1952) is celebrated for his contributions to international trade theory, particularly the factor proportions theory of comparative advantage in international trade known as the Heckscher-Ohlin theory. His work in both economic theory and economic history is notable for combining theoretical insights with a profound knowledge of economic history and the history of economic thought. In this volume, leading international economists assess the importance of Heckscher's work and its relevance to the contemporary practice of economic history.The contributors first discuss Heckscher's efforts to forge the discipline of economic history by combining both the historian's careful evaluation of sources and the economist's rigorous models. The Heckscher-Ohlin theory of factor proportions is described and tested empirically. Contributors then apply the theory to historical material, including Mediterranean trade in Biblical times, the economic effects of two periods of plague eight centuries apart, and tariff policy in 35 countries from 1870 to 1938. Heckscher's masterly work on mercantilism, the Continental Blockade, and Swedish economic history is also described and appraised in light of recent historical research.Contributors:Benny Carlson, Francois Crouzet, Lance E. Davis, Stanley L. Engerman, Ronald Findlay, Harry Flam, Rolf G. H. Henriksson, Eva, Einar, Ivar, and Sten Heckscher, Douglas A. Irwin, Ronald W. Jones, Deepak Lal, Hakan Lindgren, Mats Lundahl, Lars Magnusson, Joel Mokyr, Mats Morell, Patrick O'Brien, Kevin H. O'Rourke, Bo Sandelin, Lennart Schon, Johan Soderberg, Peter Temin, Jeffrey G. Williamson