The Exchange

The Scandinavian Economic History Review occasionally offers open access to articles that the editors believe are relevant to a broader audience in economic, business, and social history. Now available is Joel Mokyr , "Cultural entrepreneurs and the origins of modern economic growth" (vol. 61, no. 1, 2013). The previously announced availability of Geoffrey Jones, Marco H. D. van Leeuwen, and Stephen Broadberry , "The future of economic, business, and social history" (vol. 60, no. 3, 2012), continues.      Additional open access articles can be found by browsing through the contents archives (for example, vol. 59, issue 3 [2011] can be freely accessed). For more about the SEHR, please consult the journal website .

The John Carter Brown Library at Brown University will host a conference, "Beyond Sweetness: New Histories of Sugar in the Early Atlantic World," on October 24-27, 2013. The program and registration information have now been posted on the conference website.     Over two dozen speakers from the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean will evaluate the current state of scholarship, consider alternative consumer cultures and economies, and assess new directions in the study of sugar. Stuart B. Schwartz of Yale University will give the keynote address on the opening day. The conference is timed to coincide with the JCB’s fall 2013 exhibition, "Sugar and the Visual Imagination in the Atlantic World, c 1650-1840."      For full details, please visit the conference website . The registration deadline is October 1, 2013 .      [N.B.: Readers interested in this topic might also wish to visit the on-line exhibit at the Clements Librar...

The European Business History Association (EBHA) will hold its 2013 Congress in Uppsala, Sweden, on August 22-24, 2013. The program for this year's meeting, for which the theme is "Innovation and Growth," can now be found on the Congress website . Abstracts and full papers will be linked from the program as they become available. The keynote speaker for the Congress will be Riitta Hjerppe , emerita professor of economic history at the University of Helsinki, Finland.      For additional information about the meeting, please consult the Congress website; questions may be directed to the meeting coordinator, Kristina Lilja, at ebha2013@ekhist.uu.se .

Robert W. Fogel, a Nobel Prize-winning economic historian, died on June 11, 2013.  At the time of his death, at 86, he remained an active faculty member in the Department of Economics and at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Fogel was the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of American Institutions, director of the University of Chicago Center for Population Economics, and a faculty member of the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought. Perhaps best known for Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (1974, written with Stanley Engerman)—in which was collected and analyzed massive data showing that slavery was a far more profitable economic institution than had been previously thought—Fogel had already generated controversy among historians with his earlier work, Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History (1964), in which he argued that the U.S. economy in the 1800s would have grown at the sam...

An exhibit on the "History of Product Packaging" represents an ongoing joint effort between the Hagley Museum and Library and the History Department at the University of Delaware. Professor Katherine Grier 's graduate students at the University of Delaware researched and wrote papers on the topic, using the Hagley's resources. Then one of those students, John Vanek, created the Web exhibit.  The exhibit seeks to highlight questions such as "Where do product packages fit into the history of advertising and branding? To changes in technology? To the growth of consumerism? To shifting social values?" The exhibit details the history of consumer packaging in the United States over the last 150 years, with text and materials arranged under topics including "Self-Service," "Branding," and "Afterlives." When Professor Grier teaches History 867 again, a new group of students will research more objects from the Hagley collections, a...

A newly created group, the Asian Business History Conference , will hold its first meeting on July 13-14, 2013, at Thammasat Business School in Bangkok, Thailand. The theme of the meeting is "Siam Then, Thailand Now: Creating Thai Capitalism during Two Eras of Globalization." As the conference organizers explain: Although much is known about the varieties of capitalism that developed in Europe, North America and Japan, historical research on those in emerging economies is still relatively limited. This conference . . . will contribute to filling this gap in existing scholarship by addressing the many internal and external forces that shaped the development of Thai capitalism in the broader context of global business history. Please consult the meeting website for a fuller description of the meeting's aims and other details. The program for the meeting has been posted there; Geoffrey Jones of the Harvard Business School will serve as the keynote speaker.     The con...

As the summer begins, we remind readers of the call for papers for the next Business History Conference annual meeting, which will be held in Frankfurt, Germany, on March 13-15, in cooperation with the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte . The theme of the meeting is “The Virtues and Vices of Business — A Historical Perspective.” A full description of the topic and details about submitting a proposal are available in the call for papers. The deadline for receipt of all proposals is September 15, 2013.     Graduate students are reminded of the the Oxford Journals Doctoral Colloquium in Business History, held in conjunction with the BHC annual meeting. This prestigious workshop, sponsored by the BHC and funded by the Journals Division of Oxford University Press, will take place in Frankfurt on Wednesday, March 12, and Thursday, March 13, 2014. The Colloquium is limited to ten students. Please consult the call for papers for information about applying. The deadline fo...