This book provides an essential historical framework for understanding global business. The author shows how entrepreneurs built a global economy in the nineteenth century by creating firms that pursued resources and markets across borders. It demonstrates how firms shifted strategies as the first global economy disintegrated in the political and economic chaos between the two world wars, and how they have driven the creation of the contemporary global economy. Many of the issues of the global economy have been encountered in the past. This book reveals how entrepreneurs and managers met the political, ethical, cultural, and organizational challenges of operating across borders at different times and in different environments. The role of multinationals is placed within their wider political and economic context. There are chapters on the impact of multinationals, and on relations with governments. The focus on the shifting roles of firms and industries over time provides compelling evidence on the diversity and discontinuities of the globalization process. The book explores the history of multinationals across a wide spectrum of manufacturing, service and natural resource industries. By providing an accessible survey of the history of international business worldwide, this book will be key reading for students taking courses in International Business, Business History, and Entrepreneurship; and of interest to academics and researchers working in these areas.

About the Author
Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School. He previously taught at the universities of Cambridge and Reading, and at the London School of Economics, in the U.K. He is the author and editor of many books and articles on the history of international business, including British Multinational Banking 1830-1990 (OUP 1993) and Merchants to Multinationals (OUP 2000). He is a former President of both the European Business History Association and the Business History Conference of the United States, is co-editor of the journal Business History Review, and editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Business History.

Reviews
Jones's book is very useful, both as an introduction to the business scholarship on multinationals and as a very accessible text...I would declare it a great success. * Journal of World History *
It is clear that this is a valuable, student-friendly book at a number of levels... All in all, well worth the asking price. * Bernard J Foley, Economic History Review *
Jones' skills when it comes to building bridges between business history and management and business disciplines are well known... The book is strongly recommended, not only as a textbook, but also to readers who have a general interest in modern international business and business history.
The book's strengths...are manifold...Multinaltionals provides evidence of scholarship that is bright, confident, coherent, and up to date.



Book Information
ISBN 9780199272105
Author Geoffrey Jones
Format Paperback
Page Count 354
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 682g
Dimensions(mm) 246mm * 189mm * 18mm