ABSTRACT
Western business history has grown in volume and sophistication, creating important benchmarks for students of Chinese and other non-Western business systems. At its best, it has emphasized the limitations of traditional historical scholarship, blurred customary distinctions among business history, economic history, and the history of technology, and underlined the common features of market economies characterized by diverse economic activities. American business history dates from the early twentieth century and the particular political climate of that era. Nineteenth-century American history had been characterized by conflict between business groups, notably between farm proprietors and nonfarm entrepreneurs. The modern era of Western business history dates from the late 1950s and is closely associated with two developments, one general and one specific. The general development was a derivative of the post-war economic and political environment, especially the decline of the class and interest group tensions of the late 1930s and the emergence of a new contributor to prosperity and social harmony.
