Business History Review

This article considers key issues relating to the organization and performance of large multinational firms in the post–Second World War period. Although foreign direct investment is defined by ownership and control, in practice the nature of that “control” is far from straightforward.The issue of control is examined, as is the related question of the “stickiness” of knowledge within large international firms. The discussion draws on a case study of the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods manufacturer Unilever, which has been one of the largest direct investors in the United States in the twentieth century. After 1945 Unilever’s once successful business in the United States began to decline, yet the parent company maintained an arms-length relationship with its U.S. affiliates, refusing to intervene in their management. Although Unilever “owned” large U.S. businesses, the question of whether it “controlled” them was more debatable. (Pages 435–78)

This article explores the contentious U.S. State Department–Foreign Bondholders Protective Council relationship in the context of interwar foreign economic policy and bureaucratic competition. U.S. officials created the council in 1933 to represent the interests of U.S. investors in the settlement of the numerous dollar bond issues that had gone into default. The article shows why the council failed to perform as U.S. officials expected and outlines the process by which they increasingly interposed themselves in debt negotiations. In doing so, it considers the limitations of using private organizations to accomplish the objectives of public policy. (Pages 479–514)

Little has been written about urban property investment in seventeenth-century London.Market norms for investors were developed in a relatively unregulated environment, and in response to surging urban growth. “Pattern books” (manuals of design, measuring, and building) provided information to investors, helping them to evaluate an assorted set of properties.While the methods of investment described in these books were initially rudimentary, there is evidence of increased sophistication in the latter part of the century. The gradual institutionalizing of real estate practices helped to attract the necessary capital to finance London’s remarkable physical growth. (Pages 515–52)

John Maynard Keynes. Volume 3: Fighting for Freedom, 1937-1946. By Robert Skidelskyr. Reviewed by Jack High

A Ghost's Memoir: The Making of Alfred P. Sloan's My Years with General Motors. By John McDonald. Reviewed by Daniel Nelson

Hearst Over Hollywood: Power, Passion, and Propaganda in the Movies. By Louis Pizzitola. Reviewed by Pennee Bender

State of the Union: A Century of American Labor.By Nelson Lichtenstein. Reviewed by Kevin Boyle

Living It Up: Our Love Affair with Luxury. By James B. Twitchell.. Reviewed by Michael Kammen

Railroads and American Law. By James W. Ely Jr. Reviewed by John Majewski.

Down and Out, on the Road: The Homeless in American History. By Kenneth L. Kusmer. Reviewed by Elaine S. Abelson.

Origins of Commercial Banking in America, 1750-1800. By Robert E. Wright. Reviewed by A. Glenn Crothers.

God and Mammon: Protestants, Money, and the Market, 1790-1860. Edited by Mark A. Noll. Reviewed by Peter J. Wosh.

The Goodyear Story: An Inventor's Obsession and the Struggle for a Rubber Monopoly. By Richard Korman. Reviewed by Michael French

Otis: Giving Rise to the Modern City. By Jason Goodwin. Reviewed by Amy Bix

Giants of Enterprise: Seven Business Innovators and the Empires They Built. By Richard S. Tedlow. Reviewed by Maury Klein

Debt's Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America. By David A. Skeel Jr. Reviewed by Tony A. Freyer

The Middling Sorts: Explorations in the History of the Middle Class. Edited by Burton J. Bledstein and Robert D. Johnston. Reviewed by Scott Miltenbergerr

The Corporation as Family: The Gendering of Corporate Welfare, 1890-1930. By Nikki Mandell Reviewed by Judith Sealander

Wireless: From Marconi's Black Box to the Audion. By Sungook Hong Reviewed by David Hochfelder

Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West. By Mark Fiege Reviewed by Donald C. Jackson

South Carolina and the New Deal. By Jack Irby Hayes Jr. Reviewed by Stephen West

Don't Get above Your Raisin': Country Music and the Southern Working Class Music in American Life. By Bill C. Malone Reviewed by Don H. Doyle

Advertising to the American Woman, 1900-1999. By Daniel Delis Hill Reviewed by Lori Loeb

Diners, Bowling Alleys, and Trailer Parks: Chasing the American Dream in Postwar Consumer Culture. By Andrew Hurley. Reviewed by Beth Bailey

Big Government and Affirmative Action: The Scandalous History of the Small Business Administration. By Jonathan J. Bean. Reviewed by Kenneth O'Reilly

The Triumph of Ethernet: Technological Communities and the Battle for the LAN Standard. By Urs von Burg. Reviewed by Greg Downey

Evolving Financial Markets and International Capital Flows: Britain, the Americas, and Australia, 1865-1914. By Lance E. Davis and Robert Gallman. Reviewed by Ranald C. Michie

Transferring Wealth and Power from the Old to the New: Monetary and Fiscal Institutions in the 17th through the 19th Centuries. Edited by Michael D. Bordo and Roberto Cortés-Conde Reviewed by Larry Neal

Integral Outsiders: The American Colony in Mexico City, 1876-1911. By William Schell Jr. Reviewed by Noel Maurer

Moose Pastures and Mergers: The Ontario Securities Commission and the Regulation of Share Markets in Canada, 1940-1980. By Christopher Armstrong. Reviewed by Barry E. C. Boothman

Building the Trident Network: A Study of the Enrollment of People, Knowledge, and Machines. By Maggie Mort. Reviewed by William M. McBride

Allianz and the German Insurance Business, 1933-1945. By Gerald D. Feldman. Reviewed by Richard Deeg

Geschichte und Zukunft der deutschen Automobilindustrie [History and Future of the German Automotive Industry]. Edited by Rudolf Boch. Reviewed by Ulrich Jürgens

Stalin's Railroad: Turksib and the Building of Socialism. By Matthew J. Payne. Reviewed by Jonathan A. Grant

Women at the Gates: Gender and Industry in Stalin's Russia. By Wendy Z. Goldman. Reviewed by Mark Harrison

A History of Brewing in Holland, 900-1900: Economy, Technology, and the State. By Richard W. Unger. Reviewed by John S. Ceccatti

The Growth of the Italian Economy, 1820-1960. By Jon Cohen and Giovanni Federico. Reviewed by Giandomenico Piluso

Fractured Modernity: Making of a Middle Class in Colonial North India. By Sanjay Joshi. Reviewed by Tirthankar Roy

Building in China: Henry K. Murphy's "Adaptive Architecture," 1914-1935. By Jeffrey W. Cody. Reviewed by Christopher A. Reed

Consumer Politics in Postwar Japan: The Institutional Boundaries of Citizen Activism. By Patricia Maclachlan. Reviewed by Franziska Seraphim