The history of Plan Calcul―France's first information technology program, launched by de Gaulle's government in 1966―has been well described in the literature; however, few studies investigate the arsenal system of the program in depth. Drawing from Plan Calcul's archives, this article is the first to demonstrate that, in the context of de Gaulle's Cold War foreign policy, the French government, initially aiming to avoid an arsenal system, still became the program's funding supplier, entrepreneur, and client. Plan Calcul aimed to establish an industrial-type operation but was ultimately reduced to a state information technology arsenal program.

The Business Historical Society calls to the attention of its members a recent publication which should be of greatest value and interest. This is the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, which has been published jointly by the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the American Geographical Society of New York.

The article analyzes recent trends in the business history of Russia and its interrelations with mainstream business history. The authors explore the extent to which the business history of Russia can contribute to the development of the discipline. To do so, they use an “alternative business history” framework. They argue that Russian business history is a disciplinary hybrid. As such, it can reasonably be considered as an interesting testing ground for business history, which seems to be searching for a new identity among history, economics, and organizational and managerial studies. In addition, Russian business history still has considerable potential for providing new voices and stories and for contributing to international debates and a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between enterprise, state, and society.

This article examines the growth of the waste and recycling sector in Sweden since the 1970s and seeks to identify the conditions for market growth and underlying business dynamics. The article identifies a slow growth pattern at aggregate level in the 1970s, while a major shift toward higher growth rates took place only in the mid-1990s. Resembling the findings of existing studies of German and US industry counterparts, Swedish recycling companies grew larger in the 1970s and more knowledge-intensive from the 1980s. Our study concludes that the growth of the Swedish recycling industry has been driven not only by government policies addressing household waste but even more so by large manufacturing firms that have increasingly demanded more complex recycling services over time.