Description
The Business of History is a fascinating book about the history of UK business over the last 200 years. Tom Levitt is a former Labour MP turned academic who teaches about sustainable and responsible business at the University of West London. The book is a follow-up to one published in 1926, Romance of Great Businesses, written by W.H.Beable. Beable selected 32 high-profile companies of his day, ones about which he felt enthusiastic (hence the rather curious word ‘romance’) and charted their history to that date. Levitt takes up the story. With the help of more extensive research, he goes back over the century (more or less) covered by Beable and then explores what has happened to these companies since. The result is very instructive. Taking these 32 companies as representative, Levitt is able to illustrate ways in which business has changed, grouping his comments under the now widely used labels of Governance, Social and Environment.
