Many entrepreneurs have contributed to the economic growth of the Far West, from the railroad builders of the nineteenth century to the modern day pioneers in Silicon Valley. In this article, Professor Foster focuses on the career of Henry J. Kaiser—an entrepreneur who was unquestionably one of the key figures in the modernization of the region. Though Foster does not slight the economic and political factors that made possible Kaiser's achievement he stresses that Kaiser's imagination, energy, and personal commitment were key elements in the maturation of the region's industrial economy.

In this article. Professor Baum reports on recent research into the annuity markets of late medieval German Hanse towns. While historians traditionally have considered annuities an essentially noncommercial form of credit, Baum takes a different approach. Considering the annuity market as an economic institution, he describes its function as an instrument of credit and offers some speculations about how his conclusions modify our traditional view of the late medieval economy.

With the recent publication of David S. Landes's Revolution in Time (1983) the business of clockmaking has begun to receive the scholarly attention that its historical significance warrants. In this finely etched case study, Mr. Davies draws on a remarkable business record—Samuel Roberts's Register of Clocks—to document a previously obscure chapter in the history of this frequently neglected business: the crafting, sale, and distribution of grandfather clocks in eighteenth-century rural Wales. And if, as Landes contends, “the consumption of timepieces may well be the best proxy measure of modernization,” then Davies's study illuminates a key development in the rise of the modern world.

In this article Dr. Jones traces the history of the Gramophone Company—an early British multinational—between 1898 and 1931. Drawing on hitherto untapped archival sources, he provides a detailed narrative of the firm's history while at the same time placing it within the context of British multinational expansion as a whole. Of particular interest is his discussion of the firm's “special relationship” with the American-based Victor Company—a relationship that demonstrates how restrictive international agreements could affect the dynamics of multinational growth.