Book excerpt: Written in nontechnical terms, Big Business and the Wealth of Nations explains how the dynamics of big business have influenced national and international economies in the twentieth century. A path-breaking study, it provides the first systematic treatment of big business in advanced, emerging, and centrally planned economies from the late nineteenth century, when big businesses first appeared in American and West European manufacturing, to the present. These essays, written by internationally known historians and economists, help one to understand the essential role and functions of big businesses, past and present.