In our day, when the question of how and to what extent and by whom economic activity should be regulated is wide open as between legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government and a galaxy of highly developed private interest groups, the traditional Progressive idea of the just and all-wise commission as final arbiter seems dated. Mr. Ritchie shows that it was an idea to which James M. Landis clung enthusiastically, largely as a result of his experience on the Securities and Exchange Commission, until his later experience as Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board and finally as a lawyer representing one of the parties at interest before the Board. From the mounting evidence that a successful regulatory function grows, if at all, out of an appreciation of the economic realities of the particular activity being regulated, may yet come a national policy to which all may repair. Piling up such evidence is one of the most valuable public services the historian can render.

This is a classic case history in entrepreneurship — the successful introduction of innovation — in which a conservative, contented chief executive of a richly successful AM broadcasting station, a manager whose real talents and interests lay entirely outside the field of “show business,” is pitted against another executive whose knowledge of electronic entertainment was profound. If any name can be given to the one trait that the former did not have and that the latter had in abundance and which, as Dean Pusateri shows, led on to victory, it was an enlightened enthusiasm of the kind that is not readily expressed in logical terms nor subjected to cost-benefit analysis. For WWL-TV, enthusiasm won, and the rest is history.

The concerted actions of giant companies operating on the international stage, notably in mining and petroleum, rival the Schleswig-Holstein question in complexity. In the absence of any clear understanding of the reasons for huge mergers such as that which took place in the southern African copper mining industry at the depth of the Great Depression, rationalizations that reflect Marxist-Leninist simplism and populist paranoia have been popular. Messrs. Alford and Harvey undertake to unravel the reasons for the copper merger, concluding that this merger defies modern, formal merger theory and teaches that there is no substitute for a close study of the motives of “corporate insiders.”

Those who in the past twenty years have examined the historiography of industrial Italy cannot help but recognize its “backwardness” when compared to similar studies in other countries, particularly those of American entrepreneurial history. Various reasons have been given to justify this “backwardness,” such as the excessive humanistic tradition of Italian historical studies, the relatively scarce statistical data available on Italian industry, and the poor condition of industrial archives. But, above all, it has been observed that “enterprise,” “entrepreneurs,” and “entrepreneurship” are concepts not especially sympathetic to Italian historiographical culture. First, there is an ideological suspicion, which suggests that to investigate these topics implies per se a favorable attitude. Second, there is a diffuse conviction according to which it is necessary to utilize explanations other than free initiative, and, particularly to stress the role of the State, in order to understand Italian economic development.