Preindustrial businesses: the time of the merchant -- The many paths to industrialization -- British and German businesses during industrialization -- Big and small businesses in industrializing America -- Japanese and Chinese businesses during industrialization -- American, British, and German...

"Focusing on the great population movement of British emigrants before 1914, this book provides a new perspective on the relationship between empire and globalisation. It shows how distinct structures of economic opportunity developed around the people who settled across a wider British World...

"This is a unique account of working-class childhood during the British industrial revolution. Using more than 600 autobiographies written by working men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Jane Humphries illuminates working-class childhood in contexts untouched by conventional sources...