Editors' Introduction: Business History and the Middle East: Local Contexts, Multinational Responses—A Special Section of Enterprise & Society

Business history is now global history. This is in stark contrast to twenty years ago, when the discipline was based only on U.S., British and, to a lesser extent, German and French empirical foundations.1 The 2003 publication Business History around the World contains area chapters summarizing business history research that essentially cover the world, reflecting the enormous growth in the discipline in Europe, Asia, and Latin America in recent years.2 Moreover, this global spread of coverage has coincided with a thematic maturing, as scholars have diverted their attention from the technologically innovative and managerially intensive, large-scale firm. Big businesses remain a key topic today, but the particular focus is more likely to be their multinationality rather than managerial capabilities.

[1]  Regina Lee Blaszczyk,et al.  Synthetics for the Shah: DuPont and the Challenges to Multinationals in 1970s Iran , 2008, Enterprise & Society.

[2]  Relli Shechter.  Glocal Mediators: Marketing in Egypt during the Open-Door Era (infitah) , 2008, Enterprise & Society.

[3]  S. Andersen.  Building for the Shah: Market Entry, Political Reality and Risks on the Iranian Market, 1933–1939 , 2008, Enterprise & Society.

[4]  L. Hannah.  Logistics, Market Size, and Giant Plants in the Early Twentieth Century: A Global View , 2008, The Journal of Economic History.

[5]  Jonathan Zeitlin,et al.  The Oxford Handbook of Business History , 2008 .

[6]  L. Hannah.  The Divorce of Ownership from Control from 1900: Re-calibrating Imagined Global Historical Trends , 2007 .

[7]  Evan Roberts.  The Big End of Town: Big Business and Corporate Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia , 2005 .

[8]  T. Kuran,et al.  Why the Middle East is Economically Underdeveloped: Historical Mechanisms of Institutional Stagnation , 2004 .

[9]  Geoffrey Jones,et al.  Business History Around the World , 2003 .

[10]  J. Bamberg.  British Petroleum and Global Oil 1950-1975: The Challenge of Nationalism , 2000 .

[11]  C. G. A. Clay,et al.  Gold For the Sultan: Western Bankers and Ottoman Finance, 1856-1881 , 2000 .

[12]  Ş. Pamuk,et al.  A History Of Middle East Economies In The Twentieth Century , 1998 .

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[14]  Ayşe Buḡra,et al.  Devlet ve Işadamları : State and business in modern Turkey : a comparative study , 1994 .

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[16]  R. Vitalis.  State, Private Enterprise, and Economic Change in Egypt, 1918–1952 . By Robert L. Tignor · Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984. xvi + 371 pp. Charts, tables, appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $44.50. , 1989, Business History Review.

[17]  P. Clawson.  Banking and Empire in Iran: The History of the British Bank of the Middle East, Volume I Geoffrey Jones. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, xiii + 340 pp., plus 30 pp. of appendices, 36 of notes, and 12 of index. , 1988, Iranian Studies.

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[19]  Alfred D. Chandler,et al.  Managerial Hierarchies, Comparative Perspectives on the Rise of the Modern Industrial Enterprise , 1981 .

[20]  D. Landes.  Bankers and Pashas: International Finance and Economic Imperialism in Egypt , 1980 .

[21]  D. Landes,et al.  Bankers and Pashas: International Finance and Economic Imperialism in Egypt. , 1960 .

[22]  D. Landes,et al.  Bankers and Pashas , 1959 .