Harold F. Williamson

Business History and Economic History

As Fritz Redlich has had occasion to point out, business history is neither of American nor of recent vintage–that interest in company histories which began on the Continent early in the nineteenth century had by 1900 prompted at least one prominent German scholar to suggest how a study of business might be developed into an academic discipline. What was new in the United States was the term “business history,” and what is more relevant for my comments in this paper were the circumstances that led to its emergence as a special field and the effect that this separation has had on the relationship between business history and economic history.

SIGMUND DIAMOND. The Reputation of the American Businessman. Pp. 209. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955.

and lifting the trade restrictions of other nations.&dquo; With vigorous and lucid analysis the author reviews the major forces behind the economic revolution currently reshaping the world, urges the substitution of leadership through mutual understanding among the allied free nations for leadership by example, and outlines a series of proposals designed to assure an integrated foreign economic program. A series of four chapters, based on both firsthand observation and careful study, deal with the nature of the economic forces at work in the major world areas and deserve a wide reader audience. Here the author analyzes: (1) Asia’s dollar problem which stems less from an inability to sell what she produces than from a desire to

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effective social organization than we now have for achieving long-run economic goals. The experts on resources are generally hopeful. In the few cases in which they relate their findings to population growth they evince a faith that a proper application of inventiveness and technology can keep ahead of the needs of a growing population. Dennis Fitzgerald, for example, states &dquo;a deep conviction that for years to come, physically and technically, agricultural production can be increased twice as rapidly as any foreseeable increase in population&dquo; (p. 136). Similar optimism is promoted by the somewhat parochial focus of several contributors who deal only with the resource problems of the United States rather than with the much more serious problems of other parts of the world or the world as a

HARRIS, SEYMOUR E. The Economics of New England: Case Study of an Older Area. Pp. xvii, 317. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952.

have thus in one volume both a philosophical treatise and an economics text. The reviewer is obliged to admit that he found the -philosophical portions the more interesting. The economics of the volume is narrowly and dogmatically &dquo;Austrian.&dquo; There is something a little inconsistent in von Mises’ simultaneous attacks upon &dquo;panphysicalism&dquo; and &dquo;mechanism&dquo; and his very mechanical, unilateral approach to the business cycle. The reviewer would agree that von Mises does give one possible explanation of a boom and crisis. But there are scores of others of equal potential validity. A depression-like a broken leg-has many possible sources. Perhaps the basic defect of the book is indicated by its fundamental terminology. If &dquo;praexology&dquo; is too broad, &dquo;catallactics&dquo; is too narrow. I have a feeling that von Mises shoots all around the problem but does not quite face it. His narrowly monetary theory of the cycle prevents him from fully diagnosing the unstable factors inevitably involved in growth. Modern urban man, as I see it, is peculiarly vulnerable to economic insecurity and naturally reaches for some mitigation of industrial fluctuations. Insofar as von