Synopses & Reviews
This book examines how multinational enterprises and international finance influenced the course of electrification around the world. Multinational enterprises played a crucial role in the spread of electric light and power from the 1870s through the first three decades of the twentieth century. Their role did not persist, as over time they exited through "domestication" (buy-outs, confiscations, or other withdrawals), so that by 1978 multinational enterprises in this sector had all but disappeared, replaced by electrical utility providers with national business structures. Yet, in recent years, there has been a vigorous revival. This book, a unique cooperative effort by the three authors and a group of experts from many countries, offers a fresh analysis of the history of multinational enterprise, taking an integrative approach, not simply comparing national electrification experiences, but supplying a truly global account.
Review
"This extensively documented study will be of value not only to scholars interested in the electric industry, but to those studying multinational enterprises, technological diffusion, globalization, and modern history. Highly recommended." -Choice
Review
"...an impressively researched history of international finance and multinational companies in the development of the electric utility industry." -Christopher Jones, Techonology and Culture
Review
"...the first objective study of Hoechst." -Anthony Stranges, Techonology and Culture
Review
"This is a very fine history of multinational enterprise and finance. Economic, business, and international historians interested in the last century will find much new information and rigorous analysis of electrification in it most correct, global setting."
EH.net, Michael Edelstein, Queens College
Synopsis
This 2008 book offers an analysis of multinational enterprise throughout the world by examining the spread of electrification.
Synopsis
This book examines how from the late 1870s multinational enterprises and international finance influenced the spread of electrification around the world. The early and significant impact of multinational enterprises did not persist; by 1978 multinational enterprises had been replaced by electrical utility providers with national business structures. Yet, in recent years, there has been a vigorous revival of multinational enterprise in the provision of light and power. This unique cooperative effort by the three authors and a group of experts from many countries offers a fresh historical analysis.
Table of Contents
Part I. Concepts: 1. Invention and spread of electrical utilities with a measure of the extent of foreign ownership; 2. Multinational enterprise and international finance; Part II. Changes: 3. Every city, 1880-1914; 4. War, the first nationalization, restructuring, and renewal, 1914-29; 5. Basic infrastructure, 1929-45; Part III. Conclusions: 6. Summary of the domestication pattern to 1978; 7. Coming full circle, 1978-2007, and a global perspective.