The Past Speaks

Mammon and Armageddon Workshop Programme

Note that this programme was revised on 4 July 2014

Thursday 10 July 

9:00-9:15 Welcome Message:  Neil Forbes, Coventry University

9:15-9:30 Opening Remarks: Andrew Smith, Simon Mollan, Kevin Tennent

9:30-10:30 Session 1: The City of London At War

The 1914 moratoriums: banks, business, government and financial crisis management  (Richard Roberts) Commentator:   Neil Forbes

Rock Bottom? Just when they think it’s all over! Rothschild  and the Royal Mint Refinery (Michele Blagg) Commentator:   John Singleton

10:30-10:45 Coffee Break

10:45-12:15 Session 2 Science, Technology, and Business at War

Wartime scents: the First World War and the modern perfume industry (Galina Shyndriayeva). Commentator:   Rory Miller

The Essential French Connection: Comptoir des textiles artificial and the Movement of Du Pont from Military to Consumer Products Development, 1916-1939 (Jacqueline McGlade)  Commentator:   Neil Forbes

Taming the War Octopus, 1915-1921: Labour Dilution, Scientific Management, and the impact of the Ministry of Munitions on Interwar British Manufacturing (Michael Weatherburn) Commentator:   John Singleton

12:15-1:00 Lunch

1:00-2:30 Session 3: Profiting from Neutrality

Enhancing the neutrals: Organizational change of Swiss and Dutch multinationals as a result of the First World War (Takafumi Kurosawa, Ben Wubs) Commentator:   John Singleton

The Impact of the First World War on Swedish Economic  Performance: a Case Study of the Ball Bearings Manufacturer SKF (Eric Golson and Jason Lennard) Commentator:  Dr Neil Pyper

Profiting despite the Great War:  Argentina’s grain multinationals (Phillip Dehne) Commentator:  Neil Pyper

2:30-2:45 Coffee Break

2:45:4:45  Session 4: The Impact of the War on International Finance

Trading With the Enemy: HSBC’s Relationships with German Companies during the First World War (Andrew Smith) Commentator:  Chris Kobrak

Mammon Unbound: The International Financial                Architecture of Wall Street Banks, 1915-1925 (Trevin Stratton) Commentator:  Rory Miller

Friday 11 July2014

9:00-10:00 Session 5: Post-War Reconstruction

 American Big Business and the Attempt to Reconstruct War-Torn Western Europe in 1918-1920 (Volker Berghahn) Commentator:  Chris Kobrak

The impact of the First World War on British investment in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (Simon Mollan and Kevin Tennent)  Commentator:  John Singleton

Germany’s Sonderweg in Corporate Development in Comparative Perspective: the effects of the European “civil war” of 1914-45 (Leslie Hannah) Commentator:  Chris Kobrak

10:00-10:15 Coffee Break

10:15-12:00 Session 6: Legacies

The Great War: Matrix of the International Chamber of Commerce, a fortunate Business League of Nations (Clotilde Druelle-Korn)  Commentator:  Neil Forbes

Imperial Business at War: The British Imperial Council of Commerce, the Great War, and the Empire, 1914-1918 (Andrew Dilley) Commentator:  John Singleton

The Flows of International Finance after the First World War: the Bank of England and Hungary, 1920 – 1939 (Neil Forbes) Commentator:  Chris Kobrak