Where are the Rockefellers, Carnegies, and Fords of recent Japanese history? Their absence may be explained by a lack of scholarly attention to the areas of entrepreneurship, business organization, and managerial practices. Professors Rosovsky and Yamamura review the historiography of Japan's industrialization and place the five articles in this special issue within the context of recent work in business and economic history.

The economics of slavery in the United States has long been a subject of great interest to historians, but the use of bondsmen in southern industries has been little studied. Professor Starobin not only provides new information on industrial slavery, but also offers important conclusions concerning the profitability, efficiency, and viability of this “peculiar institution.”

Almost unnoticed in the midst of revisionist attacks on progressive history and the rise of the New Left, an organizational synthesis has been emerging which offers much to the student of modern America. Professor Galambos presents a historiographical survey of this synthesis and concludes that its chief strength is a mode of analysis blending the traditional tools of historical thought with ideas from the behavioral sciences.

Professor Carosso analyzes the impact of New Deal legislation upon the nation's investment banking community. Although some adjustments in banking methods resulted, the reforms did not effect any fundamental changes in the position of investment bankers in the American economy.

Tradtional Japanese disdain for business was overcome by making industrialization synonymous with the esteemed value of public service in the face of foreign economic competition. The alien corporate form of organization was made palatable by characterizing it as a family group which attracted traditional loyalties. Professor Hirschmeier attributes Japan's rapid industrialization at the turn of the century and her remarkable recovery after World War II to such pragmatic social compromises and uses them to identify and explain a uniquely Japanese “spirit of enterprise.”

Recent studies of the progressive era by Gabriel Kolko and Robert Wiebe have proven that much reform legislation was supported by many of the interests against which the bills were ostensibly written. Professor Caine shows that, in at least one important state, railroads fought reform bitterly, accepting the principle of regulation only when conservative administration of the Railroad Regulation Act of 1905 offered them unexpected protection from progressive reformers.

American entry into World War I presented complex problems in the adjustment of the private economy to the needs of a nation in crisis. Professors Cuff and Urofsky analyze the process by which the steel industry and the Wilson Administration reached a pragmatic accommodation on the regulation of wartime prices.

Professor Yen-p'ing Hao analyzes the economic, social, political, and intellectual roles of a Chinese mercantile class which served as a link between China and the West.

After initial widespread use of private cars under the “common road” concept of early railways, railroad-owned freight cars predominated from the 1840's through the 1860's, except for a short-lived boom in cars owned by “fast freight” lines. From this time on, however, the percentage of private cars has increased as railroads refused to build specialized freight cars because of high initial costs, rapid technological obsolescence, outside pressure, and managerial shortsightedness.

Historians of the Progressive Era have recently focused much attention on the role played by businessmen in the reform legislation of that period. Mr. Blackford's study considers this topic in the case of a significant portion of the California business community.

Mrs. Kujovich examines the impact of technological innovation upon the beef industry and the railroads. Utilization of the refrigerator car disrupted the old order in the relationship between the industry and the railroads, exploiting the competition between railroads to make possible the nationwide expansion of the western dressed beef industry.

Hikojirō Nakamigawa, the famous head of the Sanyō Railway and the huge Mitsui business combine, has long been characterized by historians as the epitome of the modern entrepreneur. In this article, Professor Yui, after a brief survey of the highlights of Nakamigawa's career, challenges the traditional interpretation by presenting a more balanced view of this controversial figure.

Little has been known of the role of Nuremberg in the international economy of the Middle Ages. In this pathbreaking study, Dr. von Stromer details the acquisition of the city's extensive trade privileges and economic influence and reveals that it came as the result of a conscious economic policy, planned and executed by the leading families of the city.

Professor Hidy considers many recent contributions to business history and suggests some fruitful areas for future research.

As their enterprises expanded at the turn of the century, the leaders of two of the most famous Japanese zaibatsu worked continually to maintain the delicate balance between centralization and decentralization so essential to continued growth. Professor Morikawa chronicles and analyzes the most important organizational developments in these gigantic family firms.

In the 1920's, the Supreme Court reversed its previously hostile position on the legality of many activities of trade associations. Professor Carrott finds that the primary cause of the court's shift lay in the changing social milieu of the decade, as the older insistence on rigorous competition was supplanted by an emphasis on the value of cooperation in business.

Faced with a labor shortage at a crucial point in the industrialization of Japan, tradition-oriented businessmen reacted not by raising wages but by longing for the authority-ordered labor relations of the past. Given this situation, the Meiji government moved to improve working conditions through non-economic means. Professor Taira shows that the debate over proposed factory legislation, along with the coming-of-age of a new generation of entrepreneurs, produced a “conversion” to modern management among businessmen of the late-Meiji generation.

Although fuel wood still supplied 70 per cent of the total energy requirements of the United States in 1900, a marketing mechanism for the millions of cords consumed each year is not evident. Professor Cole concludes that no other commodity of such importance had such little effect on distributive institutions.

In the manner of the Creole tradesmen of Louisiana, whose lagniappe to their patrons is legendary, the Editor offers a similar bonus to readers of the Review. Instead of trifling presents added to a purchase, however, our lagniappe will be notes and documents illustrative of the evolution of business enterprise.

Professor Gressley recounts the escapades of domestic and international promoters in the history of the Salt Creek oil field, demonstrating that fraud and chicanery can play indispensable roles in the process of economic development.