In a series of focused, thematic essays, the book examines railways as the first modern big businesses in Britain and the United States.

This title was first published in 2001. This approach is that of a business and economic historian who is interested in issues of organization, management and corporate strategy, as well as in the men who ran these giant enterprises and the workers they employed. The book is presented as a series of case studies and focussed essays. It is concerned with many of the broader perspectives and issues of business history such as the "Chandler thesis"; the debate about ownerhsip, management and control in large enterprises; the social origins and careers of business leaders; the relationship between big businesses and government; the nature of technological change; and the rhetoric and reality of corporate culture. The British and American experiences are compared and contrasted. The book draws on diverse archival materials from both sides of the Atlantic, and is a distinctive and valuable contribution to railway and business history.

This book explores the phenomenal resources dedicated to understanding and encouraging passengers to consume travel from 1900 to 1939, analysing how place and travel were presented for sale. Using the Great Western Railway as a chief case study, as well as a range of its competitors both on and off the rails, Alexander Medcalf unravels the complex and ever-changing processes behind corporate sales communications. This volume analyses exactly how the company pictured passengers in the countryside, at the seaside, in the urban landscape and in the company’s vehicles. This thematic approach brings transport and business history thoroughly in line with tourism and leisure history as well as studies in visual culture.

This is the first history of the British railway system written from a modern economic perspective. It uses conterfactual analysis to construct an alternative network to represent the most efficient alternative rail network that could have been constructed given what was known at the time - the first time this has been done.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Britain was amongst the world leaders in the production of machine tools, yet by the 1980s the industry was in terminal decline. Focusing on the example of Britain's largest machine tool maker, Alfred Herbert Ltd of Coventry, this study charts the wider fortunes of this vital part of the manufacturing sector. Taking a chronological approach, the book explores how during the late nineteenth century the industry developed a reputation for excellence throughout the world, before the challenges of two world wars necessitated drastic changes and reorganisations. Despite meeting these challenges and emerging with confidence into the post-war market place, the British machine tool industry never regained its pre-eminent position, and increasingly lost ground to foreign competition. By using the example of Alfred Herbert Ltd to illuminate the broader economic and business history of the British machine tool industry, this study not only provides a valuable insight into British manufacturing, but also contributes to the ongoing debates surrounding Britain's alleged decline as a manufacturing nation.

The years of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, aptly described by Mark Twain as the 'Gilded Age' witnessed an unprecedented level of technological change, material excess, untrammled pursuit of profit and imperial expansion. Within this dynamic and often ruthless environment many colorful characters strode across the world stage, among them the great mining tycoons, who with the thousands of prospectors, diggers, shift bosses, timbermen, 'blastmen' and 'muckers' in mining enterprise constituted one of the major spearheads of global capitalistic expansion and colonial exploitation. This volume, which carries the epic story to the mid-twentieth century provides a truly international perspective on the role of mining entrepreneurs, investors and engineers in shaping the economic and political map of the globe, in testing management techniques and in setting a vogue for extravagant displays of wealth among the world's rich. Each chapter is loosely focussed on a biographical account of a particular mining tycoon that allows for broad and comparative accounts to be made about the individuals, their business interests, the technologies they employed and the national and international political considerations under which they operated. Furthermore, this structure also allows for consideration of the effect that these tycoons had on the countries and territories in which they worked, particularly the often long-lasting impact on indigenous populations, the environment, transport links and economic development. By approaching the subject matter through this stimulating mix of cultural, social, economic, business and colonial history, many intriguing and thought provoking conclusions are reached that will reward any scholars with an interest late nineteenth and early twentieth century history.