ABSTRACT
Some articles in the learned journals are destined for oblivion shortly after their brief flowering, recalled only to lend bulk to an author's curriculum vitae or to a departmental submission for the periodic research assessment exercises, seemingly designed to show just how far the lesser universities trail behind those in the golden triangle. Others enjoy an extended life in the subterranean world of footnotes, most frequently cited to provide a starting point for a discussion intended to reveal how grievously misled were earlier scholars and just how significant the ensuing essay is to be. Few writers exhibit more of the characteristics of the piranha than an excited academic. Yet when in 1964 Derek Aldcroft 'put forward the hypothesis that Britain's relatively poor economic performance can be attributed largely to the failure of the British entrepreneur to respond to the challenge of changed conditions' (Aldcroft, 1964, p. 113), he could hardly have imagined – for all his modest assertion that the purpose of the article 'will have been achieved if it stimulates enquiry into some of the more neglected aspects of our industrial and commercial history' (Aldcroft, 1964, p. 134) – that it would provoke quite so much controversy nor lead to such widespread and intensive research. 1
