A fantastic, detailed look into American history and how it ties into the business world.

I also recently read Benjamin C. Waterhouse's THE LAND OF ENTERPRISE which is subtitled "A Business History of the United States." Waterhouse, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, is correct when he opines that we too often "relegate business to the margins of the tale" of American history. As a regular reader of "the daily dairy of the American dream" (The Wall Street Journal), I often reflect on business' impact on society.

This ambitious and heavily foot-noted text covers economic activity from colonial times to the present. Waterhouse gives many, many examples in 12 chapters which deal with eras from "Conquest, Colonies and Capitalism" through "Factories Come to America" to "Finance Takes Flight." In "Business Gets Big," for example, he explains how our modern negative images of big business "embody the enduring cultural power of the large corporations that emerged to dominate American business in the late 19th century," including railroads, steel and oil. Waterhouse's chapter titled "After the Industrial Economy" would pair nicely with the more specific case study in The Glass House by Brian Alexander. In all honestly, I think the text is a bit too dense for our high school students, but college history students and business practitioners would likely be surprised by many of the details he includes.

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