The German Chemical Industry in the Twentieth Century
Title | The German Chemical Industry in the Twentieth Century PDF eBook |
Author | John E. Lesch |
Publisher | Springer Science & Business Media |
Pages | 474 |
Release | 2013-04-17 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 9401593779 |
In the twentieth century, dyes, pharmaceuticals, photographic products, explosives, insecticides, fertilizers, synthetic rubber, fuels, and fibers, plastics, and other products have flowed out of the chemical industry and into the consumer economies, war machines, farms, and medical practices of industrial societies. The German chemical industry has been a major site for the development and application of the science-based technologies that gave rise to these products, and has had an important role as exemplar, stimulus, and competitor in the international chemical industry. This volume explores the German chemical industry's scientific and technological dimension, its international connections, and its development after 1945. The authors relate scientific and technological change in the industry to evolving German political and economic circumstances, including two world wars, the rise and fall of National Socialism, the post-war division of Germany, and the emergence of a global economy. This book will be of interest to historians of modern Germany, to historians of science and technology, and to business and economic historians.
Gravity and the Rainbow-makers
Title | Gravity and the Rainbow-makers PDF eBook |
Author | |
Publisher | |
Pages | |
Release | 1997 |
Genre | Chemical industry |
ISBN |
Determinants in the Evolution of the European Chemical Industry, 1900–1939
Title | Determinants in the Evolution of the European Chemical Industry, 1900–1939 PDF eBook |
Author | Anthony S. Travis |
Publisher | Springer Science & Business Media |
Pages | 393 |
Release | 2013-04-17 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 9401712336 |
The editors wish to thank the European Science Foundation for its support of the programme on the Evolution of Chemistry in Europe, 1789-1939, as well as for sponsoring the publication of this volume. Through the subdivision of this initiative that deals specifically with chemical industry it has been possible for historians of science, technology, business and economics to share often widely differing viewpoints and develop consensus across disciplinary and cultural boundaries. The contents of this volume are based on the third of three workshops that have considered the emergence of the modern European chemical industry prior to 1939, the first held in Liege (1994), the second in Maastricht (1995), and the third in Strasbourg (1996). All contributors and participants are thanked for their participation in often lively and informative debates. The generous hospitality of the European Science Foundation and its staff in Strasbourg is gratefully acknowledged. Introduction Emerging chemical knowledge and the development of chemical industry, and particularly the interaction between them, offer rich fields of study for the historian. This is reflected in the contents of the three workshops dealing with the emergence of chemical industry held under the aegis of the European Science Foundation's Evolution of Chemistry in Europe, 1789-1939, programme. The first workshop focused mainly on science for industry, 1789- 1850, and the second on the two-way traffic between science and industry, 1850-1914. The third workshop, dealing with the period 1900-1939, covers similar issues, but within different, and wider, contexts.
State, Cartels and Growth
Title | State, Cartels and Growth PDF eBook |
Author | Lion Hirth |
Publisher | |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2007 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9783638832397 |
Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2007 in the subject Business economics - Economic and Social History, grade: 1,0, University of Massachusetts - Amherst (Department of Economics), course: European Economic History, 64 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper provides an analysis of the German chemical industry during the "Second Industrial Revolution" of the late 19th and the early 20th century. It is modeled after Steven Webb's (1980) article on the iron and steel industry. Here it is argued that the exceptional growth and success of the industry - chemicals were the fastest growing industry in Germany and by 1890 German firms held 85% world market share in dyestuff production - was supported by a high degree of market con-centration and cartelization. This enabled the firms to gain large economies of scale and scope through backward integra-tion and product diversification. Dynamic efficiency gains were mainly achieved by relaxing credit constraints, reducing uncertainty, and allocate investment more efficiently. It is further argued that state action played a crucial role in setting up and stabilizing cartels. This analysis is in line with a Schumpeterian view of welfare-enhancing effects of imperfect competi-tion. While these findings obviously do not question anti-trust policy per se, they do question a mechanical view on market structure that is common in much mainstream economic thinking.
A History of the International Chemical Industry
Title | A History of the International Chemical Industry PDF eBook |
Author | Fred Aftalion |
Publisher | University of Pennsylvania Press |
Pages | 450 |
Release | 1991 |
Genre | Business & Economics |
ISBN | 9780812282078 |
Unlike conventional histories written about the field of chemistry, this study presents an international perspective, integrating the story of chemical science with that of the chemical industry, and emphasizing the developments of the twentieth century.
The American Synthetic Organic Chemicals Industry
Title | The American Synthetic Organic Chemicals Industry PDF eBook |
Author | Kathryn Steen |
Publisher | UNC Press Books |
Pages | 418 |
Release | 2014 |
Genre | Business & Economics |
ISBN | 1469612909 |
American Synthetic Organic Chemicals Industry: War and Politics, 1910-1930
Shaping the Industrial Century
Title | Shaping the Industrial Century PDF eBook |
Author | Alfred D. Chandler Jr. |
Publisher | Harvard University Press |
Pages | 379 |
Release | 2009-07-01 |
Genre | Business & Economics |
ISBN | 0674029372 |
The dean of business historians continues his masterful chronicle of the transforming revolutions of the twentieth century begun in Inventing the Electronic Century. Alfred Chandler argues that only with consistent attention to research and development and an emphasis on long-term corporate strategies could firms remain successful over time. He details these processes for nearly every major chemical and pharmaceutical firm, demonstrating why some companies forged ahead while others failed. By the end of World War II, the chemical and pharmaceutical industries were transformed by the commercializing of new learning, the petrochemical and the antibiotic revolutions. But by the 1970s, chemical science was no longer providing the new learning necessary to commercialize more products, although new directions flourished in the pharmaceutical industries. In the 1980s, major drug companies, including Eli Lilly, Merck, and Schering Plough, commercialized the first biotechnology products, and as the twenty-first century began, the infrastructure of this biotechnology revolution was comparable to that of the second industrial revolution just before World War I and the information revolution of the 1960s. Shaping the Industrial Century is a major contribution to our understanding of the most dynamic industries of the modern era.