Christopher Kobrak and Per H. Hansen, eds. European Business, Dictatorship, and Political Risk, 1920-1945. New York: Berghahn Books, 2004. xiv + 261 pp. ISBN 1-57181-629-1, $60.00.

In recent years pressure from international Jewish organizationshas led many European corporations to open previously closedarchives to historians. In Germany a number of major businessesand financial institutions also have commissioned corporatehistories by leading historians, in order to throw light ontheir activities during the Nazi period. This book is a collectionof papers (in the case of Gerald D. Feldman based on one ofthese corporate histories) presented at a series of workshops     

David Reisman. Schumpeter's Market: Enterprise and Evolution. Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, 2004. vii + 294 pp. ISBN 1-84376-164-5, $120.00.

The life and works of Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950) continueto fascinate social scientists of diverse disciplines and schools.For some economists Schumpeter’s institutional and evolutionaryapproach is the only way to practice economics; but even forthe mainstream the current buzz about endogenous growth andthe knowledge economy has renewed interest in his writings,especially those on technology and entrepreneurship. Businesshistorians always have been attentive to Schumpeter’sentrepreneurs and the dynamic of creative destruction, and globalizationnow provides a     

Erik Gilbert. Dhows and the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar, 1860-1970. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2004. xiii + 176 pp. ISBN 0-8214-1557-3, $49.95 (cloth); 0-8214-1558-1, $26.95 (paper).

It took a tsunami at the end of 2004 to alert the world to whatErik Gilbert could have told us well in advance—that theIndian Ocean’s edge and the people on it are intimatelyintertwined. Building from a rich grounding in one particularplace, Gilbert tells the story of the intersections betweenthe world of dhows and British colonial economic policies inthe Zanzibar islands. Zanzibar today is a semi-autonomous ifcantankerous partner with the former Tanganyika     

Roger Lowenstein. Origins of the Crash: The Great Bubble and Its Undoing. New York: Penguin, 2004. ix + 270 pp. ISBN 1-59420-003-3, $24.95 (cloth); 0-14-303-467-7, $15.00 (paper).

What happened on Wall Street from 1997 to 2002 was a financialversion of the perfect storm. Almost everything that could gowrong did go wrong simultaneously. The Securities and ExchangeCommission reforms of the 1930s had closed many of the loopholesfor chicanery, but new paths to questionable practices and debasedprinciples eventually emerged. In his examination of the originsof the "dot.com bubble" and the circumstances of the balloon’sbursting, Roger Lowenstein narrates clearly     

Ronald Seavoy. Origins and Growth of the Global Economy: From the Fifteenth Century Onward. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. 275 pp. ISBN 0-275-97912-1, $70.95.

Few scholars are confident enough to believe that they can describethe history of the "origins and growth of the global economy"in 275 pages. But Ronald Seavoy, an emeritus professor of historyat Bowling Green State University, uses that history to illuminatetwo themes: to show that the global economy is built on thefoundation of European commercial imperialism and "to show thatthe global economy as it is currently evolving is capable ofproducing     

Lowell J. Satre. Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005. xi + 308 pp. ISBN 0-8214-1625-1, $55.00 (cloth); 0-8214-1626-X, $24.95 (paper).

Solid scholarly historical studies of overseas businesses inAfrica are rare. Rarer still are studies of this area that dealwith ethics and corporate responsibility without cant or overheatedrhetoric. Lowell J. Satre’s Chocolate on Trial standsout as a nuanced history of the dilemmas of doing business responsiblyin a colonial setting. The paradoxes it describes are similarto what many corporations face today. The book demonstratesthat the     

Robert G. Angevine. The Railroad and the State: War, Politics, and Technology in Nineteenth-Century America. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004. xvii + 351 pp. ISBN 0-8047-4239-1, $65.00 (cloth).

Robert Angevine’s excellent monograph offers valuableinsights for historians of technology, business, and the military.This book details the "symbiotic" relationship of railroadsand the military, showing how the relationship evolved duringthe nineteenth century. Angevine lays out his story chronologically. The fact that theUnited States was going to need some sort of transportationinfrastructure in order to move troops in a timely manner wasfirst realized after the War of 1812. As a result,