The Emergence of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from the Colonial Era to 1914

Mira Wilkins

Published by Harvard University Press 2013

The Emergence of Multinational Enterprise

American Business Abroad from the Colonial Era to 1914

Mira Wilkins

Volume 34 in the series Harvard Studies in Business History

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674862999

Overview
Contents

About this book

The first history of the involvement of American business in direct foreign investment explores a number of pertinent questions: What was the genesis of U.S. business interests in overseas markets? What perspectives guided the financial and social policies of the pioneering companies? In what way did the activities of American business abroad influence U.S. foreign policy?

Mira Wilkins recounts the histories of early foreign investment by such familiar companies as Singer, United Fruit, Edison, American Smelting and Refining, Anaconda Copper, American Telephone, and International Harvester. Refuting a well-established myth, she demonstrates that early American foreign investment was not confined to the extractive industries and utilities, and shows that, by 1914, while America remained a debtor nation in international accounts, a large number of U.S. multinational manufacturing corporations had already come into existence. Indeed, the percentage of the 1914 gross national product attributed to direct foreign investment equals that percentage of the 1966 GNP.

Though wholly self-contained, this works joins with the author’s subsequent volume, The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from 1914 to 1970, to form the first overall history of American business abroad from our earliest times to the late twentieth century.

Author / Editor information

Wilkins Mira :

Mira Wilkins is Professor of Economics at Florida International University.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Tables Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
One. The Early Years
I. The Trader Becomes an Investor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
II. New Stakes Abroad (1800-1860) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
Two. International Business
III. The Appearance of Modern International Business (1865-1892) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
IV. Factors Influencing the Growth of American Business Abroad (1893-1914) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
V. Expanding Abroad (1893-1914) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	80
Three. The Western Hemisphere
VI. The "Spillover" to Mexico (1876-1914) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
VII. The "Spillover" to Canada (1870-1914) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
VIII. The "Spillover" to the Caribbean (1870-1914) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
IX. The South American Experience Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Four. Summation
X. The Status of American International Enterprise in 1914 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Edition: Re-issue
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 324
Keywords: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / General

eBook

Published: August 11, 2022
ISBN: 9780674862999