The foundries and forges of Decazeville were among the most important in France during the July Monarchy. Extensive company correspondence reveals that the nature of relations between the board of directors and the local managers, and between the firm and its clients, were important factors in shaping the tenor of labor relations at Decazeville. The interference of the board and clients limited the manager's authority over his subordinates. Once freed from this, the manager reformed the administration of labor at Decazeville. He tested the allegiance of his foremen to the company and emphasized to them the importance, when paying by piece-rate, of going beyond inspection of the completed products to supervision of the work as it was being done.

In this study of Philadelphia merchants in the latter half of the eighteenth century, Thomas M. Doerflinger subjects to critical scrutiny some heretofore accepted interpretations of the transition from general merchant to specialist. Specifically, he finds a surprisingly large degree of specialization in the period under study. In the course of this investigation, Dr. Doerflinger develops important ideas concerning the forces encouraging and inhibiting this transition.

The development of a national market was one of the key features of the nineteenth-century economy. In this process, innumerable institutions played a role, some large and well-known, others neither so large, nor quite so well-known, at least to the public at large. One such organization was the New York Cotton Exchange. It evolved in the aftermath of the Civil War, and over the years grew from an informal, even ad hoc organization into a formalized institution that served both public and private functions. This article by Mr. Lipartito explores the development of the Exchange and its place in the shifting national market for cotton.

Recent years have seen the so-called New Left school of historiography cut a wide swath through the study of American diplomacy. Reacting at least in part to the exigencies of the Vietnam War, as well as to older schools of diplomatic history, its adherents have molded a point of view that has emphasized economic factors as the driving force in American foreign policy. In this essay. Dr. Braeman focuses on the 1920s, a crucial decade in New Left thinking. After probing the intellectual origins of this school of thought, he brings historical statistics to bear in his analysis of American investment abroad, the conduct of American policymakers, and the contending interpretations of American foreign policy.