Welcome to Volume 26, No. 4 of Enterprise and Society. By tradition, this issue carries the Presidential Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Business History Conference, alongside summaries of those dissertations shortlisted for the Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History. The 2025 Presidential Address was delivered by Stephen Mihm at the annual meeting in Athens, Georgia (USA). Stephen’s topic was “The Business of Labor.” Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances have as yet prevented Stephen from finalizing his address for publication. We look forward to publishing the address as soon as possible. Three dissertations were shortlisted for the Krooss Prize: Joshua Lappen on “Electrification, Politics, and Visibility in Greater Los Angeles”; Pablo Pryluka on “Developing Consumers: A History of Wants and Needs in Postwar South America”; and Mattie Webb on “Diplomacy at Work: The South African Worker, U.S. Multinationals, and Transnational Racial Solidarity (1972-1987).” We congratulate all three finalists, and especially Dr. Pryluka, who was the 2025 prize recipient. All three summaries are presented in this issue.
Alongside the three Krooss Prize summaries, this issue carried ten full research articles that once again display to the fullest the breadth and depth of contemporary business history research. They take us from Sweden to Spain, from Italy to Ireland, from Africa to Japan, taking in London and Antwerp, Britain and the United States along the way. In this period, we travel from the eighteenth century to the dawn of the twenty-first century. Topics include motor rallies, corporate taxes, insolvency proceedings, slave compensation, emotional labor, business interest associations, the rural roots of US manufacturing, the economic diplomacy of consulates, and two very different takes on the importance of railroads.
There are many people who make the continuing success and vibrancy of this journal possible. As always, I am deeply indebted to our Associate Editors—Shane Hamilton, Ai Hisano, Andrea Lluch, and Sharon Murphy, Reviews Editor Alex Beasley, and to the wider Editorial Board. Of course, my deepest debt is to Carol Lockman of the Hagley Library for editorial assistance. The journal continues to be graced by beautiful and striking covers designed by Adam Albright, also of the Hagley Library. No less important is the support of Roger Horowitz and Vicki Howard as BHC Treasurer and Secretary, respectively. I also acknowledge the work of the Print Media Oversight Committee, which this year has comprised Victoria Barnes (current Chair), Xaq Frohlich, and Beatriz Rodríguez-Satizábal. I gratefully acknowledge the work of our colleagues at Cambridge University Press. In the end, though, a journal is brought alive by its authors and its readers, without whom we would not exist. Equally important are our dedicated reviewers, and I close, in gratitude, by listing the names of those who have served as reviewers over the last twelve months.
Michael Aldous
Araceli Almaraz
Piero Ammirato
Jennifer Aston
David Baillargeon
Grace Ballor
Victoria Barnes
Ruth Barton
Adrian Bell
Maxine Berg
Mary Elizabeth Berry
Marco Bertilorenzi
Vincent Bignon
Venus Bivar
Elisabet Björklund
Marten Boon
Dan Bouk
Julie Bower
Susan Brophy
Graham Brownlow
Marcelo Bucheli
Catherine Casson
Brian Cheffins
Matin Chick
Sverre Christensen
Albert Churella
Damian Clavel
Robert Colby
Andrea Colli
George Colpitts
Mandy Cooper
Teresa da Silva Lopes
Álvaro Ferreira Da Silva
Nathan Darroch
Aled Davies
Joshua Davis
John Dawes
Abe De Jong
Giuseppe De Luca
Andrew Denning
Christopher Deutsch
Paolo Di Martino
Stephanie Doktor
Alexis Drach
Thomas DuBois
Allison Elias
Bartow Elmore
Bronwen Everill
Giovanni Farese
Susanna Fellman
Tomàs Fernández-de-Sevilla
Juan Flores
Neil Forbes
Robert Friedel
Rika Fujioka
Leigh Gardner
Pierre Gervais
Valeria Giacomin
Nikolas Glover
Andrew Godley
Andreas Greiner
Barbara Hahn
Shane Hamilton
Leslie Hannah
Per Hansen
Richard Hawkins
Jan-Otmar Hesse
Steven High
Eric Hilt
Ai Hisano
Derek Hoff
Reto Hofmann
Keith Hollingsworth
Roger Horowitz
Martin Jens Iversen
Lisa Jacobson
Seongkwon Jang
Claire Jones
Robert Kaminski
Juha Kansikas
Elisabeth Koll
Arun Kumar
Elizabeth LaCouture
Naomi Lamoreaux
Markus Lampe
Eugenia Lean
Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld
Marc Levinson
Colin Lewis
Kenneth Lipartito
Manuel Llorca-Jaña
Cinzia Lorandini
Niall MacKenzie
Robin Mackie
Gary Magee
J. Carles Maixé-Altés
Keith Mcclelland
Tom McGovern
Debra Michals
Matteo Millan
rory Miller
Peter Miskell
Simon Mollan
Marco Molteni
Duncan Money
Martin Monsalve
Ingrid Monson
Pablo Diaz Morlán
Ian Mosby
Chelsi Mueller
Colm Murphy
Shutaro Muto
Masao Nakamura
Mattias Näsman
Lucy Newton
Michael Ng
Kondwani Ngoma
Shigehiro Nishimura
Nahashon Nthenya
Keith Orejel
Jan Ottoson
Dennie Oude Nijhuis
Tim Paulson
Andrew Perchard
Linda Perriton
Socrates Petmezas
Jason Petrulis
Sabine Pitteloud
Veronique Pouillard
Andrew Primmer
Pablo Pryluka
Lindsay Regele
Ronny Regev
Keith Revell
Priscilla Roberts
Neil Rollings
Mark Rose
Caitlin Rosenthal
José L. Garcia Ruiz
Ken Sakai
Amin Samman
Korinna Schönhärl
Philip Scranton
Paul Sharp
Relli Shechter
Riyoko Shibe
Kenneth Stow
Giuseppe Telesca
Kevin Tennent
Stig Tenold
Jim Tomlinson
James Torres
Gail Triner
John Turner
Laura Ugolini
Maki Umemura
Jesús Valdaliso
Sean Vanatta
Ashutosh Varshney
Lee Vinsel
Dan Wadhwani
Michael Weatherburn
Margaret Weber
Julie Willett
John Wilson
Nicholas Wong
Claire Wright
Shakila Yacob
Timothy Yang
Mary Yeager
Alden Young
Waqar Zaidi
Madeleine Zelin
Yushuang Zheng
