Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and the New Global History

Leviathans is a ground-breaking exploration of multinational corporations and differs from other books on the subject by offering the reader a totally global perspective of multinationals without portraying them simply as economic entities. Written by experts on various aspects of the history, development, cultural and social implications of the multinational corporation, the book paints a compelling and coherent picture of the way these businesses affect almost all areas of our existence. As we might expect, the multinational company is shown to play a major role in the globalization that is reshaping so much of our lives.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Alfred Chandler and Bruce Mazlish; Part I. The Scope of the Multinational Phenomenon: 1. A primer on multinational corporations Brian Roach; 2. Multinational enterprise to 1930: discontinuities and continuities Mira Wilkins; 3. Multinationals from the 1930s to the 1980s Geoffrey Jones; 4. Innovative multinational forms: Japan as a case study Sei Yonekura and Sara McKinney; Part II. Cultural and Social Implications of Multinationals: 5. The social impacts of multinational corporations: an outline of the issues, with a focus on workers Neva R. Goodwin; 6. A global elite? Bruce Mazlish and Elliott Morss; Part III. The Governance of Multinationals: 7. Governing the multinational enterprise: emergence of the global shareowner Robert A. G. Monks; 8. The financial revolutions of the twentieth century Zhu Jia-Ming and Elliott R. Morss; 9. Multinational corporations, the protest movement, and the future of global governance Stephen J. Kobrin; Conclusion Bruce Mazlish.

About the Author :
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. is Isidor Straus Professor of Business History Emeritus and Harvard Business School. He is internationally renowned as one of the most prominent and influential contemporary business historians. His major works, Strategy and Structure (1962), The Visible Hand (1977), and Scale and Scope (1990) have won many prices, including the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes. He is also co-editor, with Franco Amatori and Takashi Hikino, of Big Business and the Wealth of Nations (Cambridge 1997). Bruce Mazlish is Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His publication include The Uncertain Sciences (1998), The Fourth Discontinuity: The Co-Evolution of Humans and Machines (1993), A New Science: Breaking the Connections and the Birth of Sociology (1989) and Conceptualizing Global History (1993), which he co-edited with Ralph Buultjens. He has also written numerous articles on globalization.

Review :
"This book is a major contribution to our understanding of the origins and development of the multinational corporation. The volume is a classic collection of key articles on the changing nature and dynamics of MNE's in the global economy. Chandler and Mazlish do a great job explaining multifaceted nature and interests in MNE's, and their role in the processes of globalization. This collection will be of great interest to scholars in economics, economic history, and business and organizations." David J. Teece, Mitsubishi Bank Professor of International Business and Finance, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley