“The Vast and Unsolved Enigma of Power”: Business History and Business Power

Abstract

Business is commonly regarded as one of the powerful actors in the world today. However, this position is neither as straightforward as often believed nor particularly new. Nevertheless, business historians have not focused on the topic of business power to date, often leaving it as something lurking in the background of their analyses. There are signs that this may be beginning to change with the growth of studies on the history of capitalism, but this revised presidential address encourages business historians to engage more fully and explicitly with the concept of power and to recognize the different ways in which the concept can be used to enlighten the study of business history.