The history of Supreme Life Insurance Company, now the third largest black insurance firm in the United States, is representative of its industry as a whole. In this first study of an individual Negro life insurance firm, Professor Puth suggests that Supreme Life may also serve as a barometer of future trends as black firms compete with larger white companies now being drawn into the formerly segregated market by falling mortality rates and rising incomes among Negroes.

In the mid-eighteenth century, the Scottish coal industry was characterized by small pits, lagging technology, serf labor, and owner management. Thus, severe bottlenecks in the supply of responsible managerial personnel occurred when the market expanded as the result of the establishment of coke-using iron works and the growth of urban centers in the last four decades of the century. By 1815, however, the Scottish industry had seen the rise of large firms, an advance in technology, the abolition of serf labor, and the attainment of near self-sufficiency in the supply of essential professional managers.

As Great Britain expanded its economic sphere at the turn of the century, what was the nature of the relationship between the imperial government and private firms seeking profits within the free trade empire? Was there a “well-planned and consistent program directed from the top,” or was the government's so-called “high policy” toward business actually the result “of ad hoc compromises among various departmental heads” buried three and four levels deep in the Colonial Office? The experience of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Co. of Singapore suggests that the opportunities for British firms to exploit the resources of British controlled territories could be seriously circumscribed by the “arbitrary paternalism” of “crusading bureaucrats.”

During the 188's and 1890's, the innovations of James Buchanan Duke first disrupted and then rationalized the American tobacco industry. Duke's career and the early history of his American Tobacco Co. serve as case studies in both the history of business administration and in the coming of “big business” to the United States.

Professor McClelland reviews two book on land speculation, a traditional historical study by Malcom J. Rohrbough and another which falls in the category of “new economic history” by Robert Swierenga.

In the manner of the Creole tradesmen of Louisiana, whose lagniappe to their patrons is legendary, the Editor offers a similar bonus to readers of the Review. Instead of trifling presents added to a purchase, however, our lagniappe will he notes and documents illustrative of the evolution of business enterprise.