The following article served to introduce the first issue of Tradition, a German journal of business history, in October, 1956. It constitutes a review of business history generally, with particular reference to progress and ideas in Germany, notes of efforts in other Continental countries, and comparative references to American progress. Guideposts are set up both for the journal and for scholars active in the field. These illustrate certain unique problems facing German historians, but at the same time emphasize the existence of broad agreement among business historians on basic goals and operating methods. Reprinted in translation through the courtesy of Tradition and of Professor Wilhelm Treue, Editor.

Historians have recorded some of the more spectacular failures in American business, but the subject of business failure in itself has not been intensively studied. To lay the groundwork for such a study, the experience of individual firms should be examined in detail and attention should be directed to small as well as large business units. The history of Smith & Griggs provides an example of “discontinuance” which came about not as a result of a single catastrophic event but by a process of long-time attrition involving every phase of the company's operations.

Tumbling barriers once heralded globalization's ascent. The abolition of capital controls propelled the integration of financial markets from the mid-1970s, and the free movement of capital, goods, services, and labor soon became foundational commitments for the European Union. Multilateral trade reforms, orchestrated after 1995 by the new World Trade Organization, lowered barriers to commerce, while telecommunications and transportation technologies slashed the costs of long-distance transactions. In a stunning development, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 showcased the incapacity of even totalitarian regimes to contain the desires of ordinary citizens for freedom, openness, and global engagement. Recalling that halcyon moment, when a bifurcated Cold War subsided and a new era of globalization and openness took tangible form, the journalist Edward Luce invokes Wordsworth: “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive.”

To facilitate research in business history among scholars throughout the world, the Review presents the fourth in its current series of reports by our International Correspondents. It is our hope that comparative studies of common problems and the exchange of data and ideas will continue to follow.

As a challenge for further research and analysis, Professor Kirchner suggests some of the cultural differences encountered by Western businessmen in Russia which significantly shaped their conduct of trade.