Publisher's description: This book offers the first in-depth international survey of current research and debates in business history. Over the last two decades enormous advances have been made on the history of business enterprise and business systems. Historians are documenting and analyzing the evolution of a wide range of important companies, their patterns of innovation, production, and distribution, their financial affairs, their political activities, and their social impact. This volume provides a reference work which will be of immense value to historians, economists, management researchers and others concerned to access the latest insights on the evolution of business. Each chapter is written by a prominent authority who provides an up-to-date assessment of the state and significance of research in their area. An opening section debates the identity and borders of the discipline, followed by wide-ranging surveys of the business history literature in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Japan and the Chinese-speaking world. The final section examines internationally comparative research on multinationals, family business and government relations.