Firms, Networks and Business Values

Mary B. Rose is Senior Lecturer in Business History in the Management School at the University of Lancaster. She is the author of The Gregs of Quarry Bank Mill (1986) and received the 1996 Alan Ball prize for her edited volumeThe Lancashire Cotton Industry: A History since 1700. She is past president of the Association of Business Historians and currently Director of the Pasold Research Fund.

• Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: the evolution of two industries; Part I. The Culture of Business Networks 1750–1860: 2. Industrialisation and the cotton industry in Britain and the United States; 3. Family firms, networks and institutions to 1860; 4. The management of labour to 1860; 5. Networks and the evolution of government-industry relations to 1860; Part II. Continuity and Change: 6. Consolidation and change, 1860–1914; 7. Prosperity and decay in war and peace, 1914–39; 8. The turbulent years, 1939–80: the politics of decline; 9. Conclusion; References; Index.

'Firms, Networks and Business Values is an important book. Scholars interested in business and technological change will find this account essential.' Business History