Mining Tycoons in the Age of Empire, 1870-1945: Entrepreneurship, High Finance, Politics and Territorial Expansion, ed. Raymond E. Dumett

Abstract

This multifaceted historical narrative employs the modus of collective biography to analyse the diversity of leadership styles, the discontinuities of finance capitalism, and the breakthrough technologies that affected growth and development in the mining industries of imperial Britain and the United States of America during a period of intense international rivalry and war. Crafting an integrated narrative from a collection of disparate articles that vary widely in style and content is difficult under any circumstances. The successful outcome of this assignment is a testament to the expertise of its editor, one of nine contributors from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. His inclusive and incisive introduction pulls the various parts together into a coherent analytical framework for understanding the personal-professional nexus in mining strategy and its broader economic and political impact. Focusing on individual mining moguls provides a multiple framework for understanding their importance in this formative period, which marked the transition from small, individual or family-oriented selective mining of high-grade precious metals to mass mining of lower-grade base metals. The causes and consequences of this transition have been extensively studied and are well understood. Mining grew in importance along with the rising needs of modern industry for copper, fertiliser, iron, lead and zinc. Efficient, productive and profitable mass mining required experienced management, economies of scale, new technology, trained engineers and technical staff, high capital investment, innovative financial syndicates, market control and vertical integration. Ultimately, market control on a global scale required cartelisation and integrated, trans-national corporate structures with enormous political power and socio-economic influence.