Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2012
Business history has been a thriving academic industry in Britain for the last three decades. Following some pioneering case studies of Industrial Revolution entrepreneurs by the early giants of the discipline of economic history, the postwar generation has produced a series of high quality company histories. The first of these, published in 1954, was Charles Wilson's history of the Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever, formed by a merger of Lever Brothers and Margarine Unie in 1929. Wilson's book set the pattern for a high standard of scholarship, resting on complete freedom of access to company archives, and for publication based on scholarly independence rather than the public relations needs of the commissioning organization. If some of its terms of reference now seem dated, and its framework of analysis somewhat unscientific, then that is an indication of the incentive Wilson provided for others to do better, particularly in the use of economic theory and of comparative analysis setting firms in their industrial or international context.
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5 There are, for example, concentrations of business historians at the Universities of Glasgow, Liverpool, London, and East Anglia. Among the important forthcoming works are Dr. Terry Gourvish's history of British Railways, Dr. Richard Davenport-Hines' history of the Glaxo pharmaceutical group, and the forthcoming histories of British overseas banking: Dr. Geoffrey Jones on the British Bank of the Middle East and Professor Frank King on the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. For a preview of the latter see King, Frank H.H. (editor), Eastern Banking: Essays in the History of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (London, 1983).Google Scholar
6 The Unit was established in 1979 with the author as its Director. Among the projects being undertaken are Dr. David Jeremy's Dictionary of Business Biography (a prosopographical study of the social and educational origins and business careers of 1000 leading British businessmen over the last 100 years), Dr. Geoffrey Jones's study of British multinationals, the work of Sir Arthur Knight and the author on modern relations between business and government, and Dr. Jonathan Liebenau's comparison of research and development in Britain, Germany, and the United States. Recent news of the Unit's research is published in the serials Business History (Frank Cass and Co, London, three times per year) and the Business History Newsletter (twice a year, from the Unit).
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9 The London Business School and the School of Management at the University of Bath both recently announced their intention of appointing a business historian to their faculty.
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