The factory system in one of its earliest forms—the textile mill—made limited strides in the American South during the closing decades of the slave era. While bondsmen were put to work in mills almost from the beginning, the problem of adapting an agricultural work force to the factory system was one that had to be solved simultaneously with the development of the factory system itself. Since then, historians have wondered whether the use of slaves in early industry was an intensification of the human aspects of bondage or whether it represented a marginal improvement in their physical and spiritual welfare. Professor Miller offers no answer to these questions, nor to those of how widespread or how successful was the use of slaves as factory operatives. He demonstrates, however, that apart from the fact that bondsmen took to factory work more readily than poor whites, the problems to be solved by managers, before a successful degree of efficiency could be achieved, were common to all new industrial systems; clearly, the development of an intelligent disciplinary system, enlightened motivation, and good working conditions were as important in using slaves as in using free labor.

Of the innumerable types of business enterprise that flourished in nineteenth-century America, none was more important than the railroads. For the first time in the national experience they provided relatively cheap, dependable transportation into the heartland and created a national market that prompted the growth of so many other aspects of national endeavor. As railroad leaders built what became America's first big business, they also developed a new self-image and with it a vocabulary drawn from their conception of competition as war. It is this new self-image and the lexicon that went with it that form the subject of this article by James A. Ward.

In recent years the political turmoil in the Middle East, the activities of OPEC, and the threat of “the oil weapon” have created so many reverberations in the industrialized world that it is easy to forget that petroleum has long been a significant factor in international politics. A relatively early case in point is the controversy that emerged after World War I when British and American interests clashed over the control and exploitation of the great oil wealth of Iraq. While the problem was satisfactorily resolved—at least from the Anglo-American standpoint—the action of diplomats on both sides not only reflected the growing importance of Middle-Eastern petroleum but also brought out the differing British and American philosophies of what the international economic order should be. While some people may disagree with the interpretation offered in this essay, Professor Stivers clearly demonstrates that access to and control of petroleum resources lay at the heart of the contentious issues that altered and shaped the international order of the early twentieth century.