Description
Book Synopsis
This book examines how, from the late 1870s, multinational enterprises and international finance influenced the spread of electrification around the world. Although by 1978 they had been replaced by electrical utility providers, more recently they have had a revival. The result is a truly global account of electrification.
Trade Review
Review of the hardback: 'This is a definitive study which will long be valued by business, financial and technological historians and, it is to be hoped, will also inspire new perspectives in such related fields.' Financial History Review
'The novelties of multinational finance that accompanied - and made possible - the electrification process throughout the world constitute the focus of this ambitious book … this book enriches the understanding of how electric-power systems evolved …' The Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Table of Contents
Part I. Concepts: 1. Invention and spread of electrical utilities with a measure of the extent of foreign ownership; 2. Multinational enterprise and international finance; Part II. Changes: 3. Every city, 1880–1914; 4. War, the first nationalization, restructuring, and renewal, 1914–29; 5. Basic infrastructure, 1929–45; Part III. Conclusions: 6. Summary of the domestication pattern to 1978; 7. Coming full circle, 1978–2007, and a global perspective.
