ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the major themes of the edited volume and provides an overview of the current scholarship on the history of global business. The volume makes two main contributions. First, it explores how the multinational enterprise (MNE) impacted not just economic interactions, but also political, social, technological, and environmental patterns and relationships. Second, the volume analyzes how global business facilitated the mechanisms of cross-border interactions that in turn affected individuals, organizations, industries, national economies, and international relations. The introduction provides a guide to the chapters of the handbook that explore dynamic change as well as continuities, both of which often only become visible—and can only be fully understood—when analyzed in the long run.
