About the Journal

History

The first two issues of the journal Entreprises & Histoire were published one in April 1992, the other in December 1992 by Editions ESKA. The project had been formed two years earlier by François Caron, professor at the University of Paris IV, and Patrick Fridenson, director of studies at EHESS. It was born from the observation that France lacking a magazine specially devoted to the history of companies, unlike the other large industrialized countries, be it Great Britain, Italy, Germany or the United States. This situation appeared to be all the more paradoxical since the discipline had known, since the 1970s, a boom parallel to the movement of reconciliation between French society and its businesses, which marked this period. All the French professors of economic history, as well as several professors of management, agreed to serve on the Editorial Board. A request for the subsidy was presented to the Industrial History Committee, created near the Minister of Industry, and chaired then by Mr. Fauroux, another near the CNL. The first was granted within the framework of the Institute for the History of Industry, chaired by Mr. Roger Martin, in April 1991. It took the form of support subscriptions paid in December 1991 and February 1992. The second, of 40,000 francs, was granted in July 1991 and paid in July 1992.

 

Content

Each issue contains four or five articles of twenty to twenty-five pages each, a set of texts intended to report on current events in the history of companies and comprising: a debate on the chosen theme, bringing together one or more historians and one of the company managers, an original document, a section entitled "wink", highlighting some spicy event concerning the life of the company, a descriptive list of the works published, a chronicle of the companies archives, another of the recently defended, unpublished theses, with approximately one-page reviews. This last section seems essential to publicize the latest developments in the discipline. These different sections aim to briefly present the news of the history of companies, while the articles aim to set up debates belonging to the field of basic research. The essential aim of the review is indeed to react against the triple hagiographic, monographic, and anecdotal drift which the history of companies in the world is currently undergoing, and to redirect its problem in two directions: that of general economic history, that of management science. It has indeed become an essential component of both and can itself flourish only if it integrates the issues and methods of these two disciplines. The content of the issues illustrates the editorial strategy that intends to lead the office: relying on background articles of a very strong historical character and charged with learning, each of them is deployed, thanks to the debate, to immediate news since it involves, in a particularly impactful, corporate leaders or senior managers.