The Past Speaks

I was not, alas, able to go to the Business History Conference this year.

However, looking over the list of papers I’m feeling very jealous of the people who went! I’m always enormously stimulated by the BHC.  This year, I noticed two interesting papers on Canadian topics.

Laurence B. Mussio, McMaster University

A Clear and Present Danger? The State, Foreign Control, and the Canadian Life Insurance Industry, 1950-1962
[Abstract]

Chris Madsen, Canadian Forces College

Technology Adoption and Adaptation in Canada’s West Coast Shipyards, 1918-1950
[Abstract]     [Paper]

There was also some Canadian content in one of the papers delivered in the Empire, State and Capitalism in Early Modern Britain panel.

Michael Wagner, Lady Margaret Hall, OxfordManaging to Compete: The Hudson’s Bay, Levant, and Russia Companies, 1714-1763
[Abstract]

I was also pleased to see that H.V. Nelles, who is the L.R. Wilson Professor of Canadian History at McMaster University and an expert on Ontario Hydro, was the discussant in a panel on State-Owned Enterprises.

A.5 The Rise and Demise of State-Owned Enterprises
Columbus B

Chair: Rowena Olegario, Oxford University
Discussant: H. V. Nelles, McMaster University

Franco Amatori, Bocconi University, and Daniela Felisini, University of RomeA Special Kind of Management: IRI, 1950-1980
[Abstract]     [Paper]

Mattia Granata, Universita degli Studi di MilanoPolitics and the Demise of the Entrepreneur State, Italy 1972-1992

Fabio Lavista, Bocconi University, and Giandomenico Piluso, University of SienaGetting Unsustainable: Debts, Investments, and Losses of Italian State-Owned Enterprises from the Golden Age to Privatizations, 1951-1991
[Abstract]