Writing in 1954, and on this subject I have no reason to think he has since changed his mind, Charles Wilson said: ‘In economic history as elsewhere a man is limited by circumstances: yet at the heart of the economic process there is human intelligence, human character, ingenuity and enterprise.’ Then, discussing the nature of business history, he said: ‘it brings the historian to close grips with a problem fundamental to the philosophy of history–the essential relationship of the individual and society. Thus, the business historian must sometimes feel that he is a biographer writing primarily biography conceived in terms of a particular kind of concrete achievement–the business itself.’

The circumstances which govern a businessman's activities are economic, political, technical, social. Does he live through times of boom or slump? Is the general framework of the state, in such matters as taxation, monetary policy, social services, planning controls, antimonopoly legislation, restrictive or liberating to private enterprise? Are technical innovations coming forward freely? If they are, do the necessary skill and plant exist for developing them or can they readily be assembled? Can the money be found to carry innovations through the phase of development? Can the resulting products be effectively marketed? Above all, what is the general attitude of society towards business, as reflected in the educational system, in labour relations, in the media, in the esteem or otherwise in which businessmen and business are held?

In relation to matters like this the businessman is a fish in the economic and social sea. The tides, the currents, the temperature of the ocean are not for him to control, but he can use them to shape his course.