The Business History Initiative seeks to promote research and teaching on the history of emerging markets. This builds on a long tradition at the School. During the 1950s, the Center for Research in Entrepreneurial History produced pioneering studies of business in Egypt, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere. The Harvard Studies in Business History series has published major works on the history of global business, as well as studies of Japan and China, including Sherman Cochran’s Big Business in China: Sino–Foreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890–1930.
Emerging Markets Oral History Project
Launched in 2012, the Emerging Markets Oral History Project is interviewing senior business leaders in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It seeks to capture the story of the development of business systems in emerging economies over the last four decades in order to provide the basis for research and course development. This new project builds on an earlier one that collected the oral histories of leading business practitioners from Argentina and Chile. These interviews are audio recordings with Spanish and English transcripts, and are maintained by Baker Library Historical Collections. The new set of interviews of business leaders working in Africa, Asia, and Latin America will become available during 2014.
Baker Library Historical Collections