This groundbreaking account of the development of American business from the colonial period to the present explains that the history of the United States can best be understood not as a search for freedom—but as a search for wealth and prosperity. The Land of Enterprise charts the development of American business from the colonial period to the present. It explores the nation’s evolving economic, social, and political landscape by examining how different types of enterprising activities rose and fell, how new labor and production technologies supplanted old ones—and at what costs—and how Americans of all stripes responded to the tumultuous world of business. In particular, historian Benjamin Waterhouse highlights the changes in business practices, the development of different industries and sectors, and the complex relationship between business and national politics. From executives and bankers to farmers and sailors, from union leaders to politicians to slaves, business history is American history, and Waterhouse pays tribute to the unnamed millions who traded their labor (sometimes by choice, often not) or decided what products to consume (sometimes informed, often not). Their story includes those who fought against what they saw as an oppressive system of exploitation as well as those who defended free markets from any outside intervention. The Land of Enterprise is not only a comprehensive look into our past achievements, but offers clues as to how to confront the challenges of today’s world: globalization, income inequality, and technological change.

"This is a glorious America for the alert and resourceful," notes Daniel Friedenberg in this critical review of the American presidency during the last half of the 20th century. But he cautions, "This is an unhappy America for the disadvantaged, the weak in body or mind, and those born without close family ties."The disparity between rich and poor in our immensely wealthy nation and the corrupting influence of money on politics to the advantage of the few over the many form the heart of his critique. Friedenberg emphasizes that the New Deal concern for the underdog - the major social achievement of the first half of the 20th century - has been gradually abandoned by presidents in the latter half of the century, along with tax policies that shifted wealth from the well-to-do to the less privileged. Though paying lip service to democracy, in fact recent presidents have upheld a system designed to maximize the influence of a powerful elite, "a flexible plutocracy," as Friedenberg describes it. This has good and bad aspects. On the one hand, the innovations launched by powerful business leaders, such as Henry Ford, Thomas J. Watson (IBM), and Bill Gates (Microsoft), have resulted in millions of new jobs and advanced the overall prosperity of the nation. On the other hand, the system does little to help the poor rise to a higher level, and it has kept the middle class stagnating for the last thirty years. The effect of presidential policies is a divide between the haves and have-nots that today is every bit as stark as it was before the Great Depression.Friedenberg pleads for a new focus on improved education for all to narrow the widening gap between rich and poor, instead of the current folly of building gated communities for the wealthy and ever-more prisons for the law-breaking underprivileged. The vast technological resources unleashed by the computer revolution can and should be used to create a more equitable American future.

Hill contends that French officials in the postwar decade had already perceived a deep-rooted Amer. indifference, even hostility, to a number of vital French nat. interests. The author examines the harsh disappointments & frustrations these officials experienced in their dealings with Amer. in the 1780s, whether on the high seas, or in U.S. courts & customs houses, in the halls of Congress, or in their encounters with Amer. attitudes. These essays add to what is already known about France's difficulties with the U.S. in this era. Not so well known, however, are: how French officials perceived these problems; what solutions they sought; or how keenly frustrated they became when, despite Amer. protestations of gratitude for French assistance during the war for independence, they found self-interested Amer. unwilling to heed the least claims of an erstwhile ally.

Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United and other high-profile cases have sparked passionate disagreement about the proper role of corporations in American democracy. Partisans on both sides have made bold claims, often with little basis in historical facts. Bringing together leading scholars of history, law, and political science, Corporations and American Democracy provides the historical and intellectual grounding necessary to put today’s corporate policy debates in proper context. From the nation’s founding to the present, Americans have regarded corporations with ambivalence—embracing their potential to revolutionize economic life and yet remaining wary of their capacity to undermine democratic institutions. Although corporations were originally created to give businesses and other associations special legal rights and privileges, historically they were denied many of the constitutional protections afforded flesh-and-blood citizens. This comprehensive volume covers a range of topics, including the origins of corporations in English and American law, the historical shift from special charters to general incorporation, the increased variety of corporations that this shift made possible, and the roots of modern corporate regulation in the Progressive Era and New Deal. It also covers the evolution of judicial views of corporate rights, particularly since corporations have become the form of choice for an increasing variety of nonbusiness organizations, including political advocacy groups. Ironically, in today’s global economy the decline of large, vertically integrated corporations—the type of corporation that past reform movements fought so hard to regulate—poses some of the newest challenges to effective government oversight of the economy.

This 2003 book examines the growth and influence of the theatre in the development of the young American Republic.