Economic Niches Research Articles

How fruit moves: Crop systems, culture, and the making of the commercial blueberry, 1870–1930

Social Impact StatementThe history of blueberries highlights the agroecological systems, multispecies relationships, and socioeconomic factors that shape eating habits and commercial availability of food. In the United States, an elaborate and lucrative human‐managed crop system evolved around so‐called wild blueberries in the late nineteenth‐century. Blueberry domestication under the auspices of public‐private collaboration in the early twentieth century then established the foundation for today's global blueberry trade. Wild blueberries continued to occupy specific economic niches, however, and an uneasy dynamic developed between locally revered Vaccinium species and the commercial “blueberry.” In an urbanizing world of people increasingly alienated from their food sources, blueberries provide a reminder of the intricate relationships between people and plants that shape both basic prospects of survival and specific ways of life, whether for good or for ill.Summary This work examines blueberries' emergence as a commercial product and how it grew out of a history that involved multiple Vaccinium species and their convoluted interactions with human ecologies. It outlines the agroecology of the wild blueberry trade in nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century Maine, followed by blueberries' domestication and expanded commercialization in the 1910s and 1920s through a public‐private collaboration between USDA scientist Frederick V. Coville and New Jersey cranberry grower Elizabeth C. White. The complexity of blueberries' path to becoming a global commodity underscores the significance of cultural factors in determining how a singular “blueberry” came to be defined in the first place. The article uses a range of sources to document blueberries' history of commercialization from the late nineteenth century to the present. In particular, local newspapers from Maine made it possible to reconstruct the agroecology of the wild blueberry trade in the state in the period prior to 1920, while a variety of government documents and agricultural journals provided the key means for exploring blueberries' domestication and commercialization in the 1910s and 1920s. The article delineates the main features of the agroecology that defined Maine's wild blueberry crop system and the public‐private relationship surrounding the domestication and commercialization of blueberry culture in New Jersey. These histories ultimately underscore the interplay between regional cultures, processes of commodification, and a nationalizing economy that came to define the blueberry as a product in the fresh fruit market of the United States. Public‐private collaborations, cultural discourses, and the evolving market relations that came with the globalization of blueberry culture in the late twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries continue to reflect trends established earlier in the twentieth century. The article concludes that the emergence of “the blueberry” as a singular commercial product embodies a set of systems and relationships between plant species and human societies that blurs the boundaries between wild and domesticated, ranges in scale from the local to the global, and preserves niches for localism within a global commercial landscape that itself contains multiple species underneath a veneer of standardization. Today's globalized fresh blueberry thus contains within itself a long and convoluted history of cultivation, plant breeding, competing crop systems, market relations, and cultural constructs.

DIGITAL CONVERGENCE AND VALUE CREATION: TVONE’S STRATEGIC ADAPTATION TO THE DIGITAL LANDSCAPE

In the wake of the Analog Switch Off (ASO) in Indonesia since November 2022, the traditional television industry faces significant challenges, including a decline in viewership and a fiercely competitive advertising market. With over 40 digital channels available in Jakarta alone, compared to just 11 national television stations previously, and the growing dominance of digital media, traditional broadcasters are compelled to adapt. This study focuses on tvOne, a conventional television broadcaster, and its strategic responses to these challenges. Our research methodology employs a qualitative approach in order to extract valuable and insightful information from highly knowledgeable sources. To achieve this, we have conducted interviews with seasoned policymakers in tvOne's business strategy, as well as with professionals working in the digital division. By doing so, we aim to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter at hand. This will enable us to present a comprehensive and accurate report that will benefit the industry as a whole. The analysis reveals how tvOne leverages media convergence to transform digital threats into opportunities for value creation. Specifically, it explores tvOne's use of news broadcast footage and digital platforms like YouTube to carve out new economic niches. This case study contributes to the understanding of how television stations can utilize technology advancements to enhance the value of their offerings. It offers valuable strategies and recommendations for broadcasters navigating the rapid technological evolution in the digital era, underscoring the importance of adaptation and innovation in sustaining relevance and competitiveness

Сохранение миноритарных языков и экономические факторы (на примере татарского и карельского языков)

This article argues the importance of studying the economic factors that influence the preservation of minority languages and language choice. Economic and sociolinguistic methods of studying the relationship between minority language proficiency and labor income are considered. The empirical research is made within the framework of an approach close to the ethnography of language policy, i.e. through the prism of personal, subjective views and assessments of “ordinary” people. The empirical case is made up by two republics of the Russian Federation — Tatarstan and Karelia. The material was the data of sociolinguistic surveys, interviews and ethnographic observations collected in these regions in 2021 and 2022. The empirical analysis revealed both the absence of the influence of minority language competence on income, and the presence of spheres and economic niches where such an influence exists. Employment opportunities, earnings and part-time work are available in these republics in the field of science, culture, media, and creative industries. The research also revealed the role of economic factor in the hierarchy of people’s needs. The needs of (linguistic) identity, the desire to preserve “language and roots” take the second place until the basic needs that push people to choose the language of “bread and job” are satisfied. At the end, the article outlines the directions for further research on the relationship between the economic factor and minority languages.

Wiederbelebung der Ortsgemeinschaft in einer kleinen Industriestadt in Südosteuropa: Fallstudie Fieni, Rumänien

Under communist rule, the development of many small and medium-sized industrial towns in Southeast Europe saw manufacturing industry become the engine of the local economy. The resulting deindustrialisation of the 1990s severely affected them. This study explores community perceptions within Fieni – formerly the most industrialised Romanian town – about its present development conditions and prospects. It also seeks people’s opinions to inform future planning through a participatory governance process. To analyse the inhabitants’ insights on the impact of deindustrialisation on their community, 69 street interviews were conducted with randomly selected people. The results highlight both a sense of nostalgia and pride for the town’s industrial past, and a deep dissatisfaction with its current socio-economic situation. However, younger respondents tended to hold optimistic hopes of discovering and developing new local economic niches. Additionally, there are conflicting perceptions between the general population and the decision makers on the planning of the town’s future, suggesting the need for more intense and cooperative development approach.

Юг России: социально-экономическая траектория макрорегиона (2000–2020-е гг.)

The article examines the main directions of social and economic dynamics of the southern macroregion of Russia at the beginning of the 21st century. The development of these territories in the 2000–2010 was determined by a complex correlation of the influence of the federal center, managerial practices of regional authorities, activities of local, Russian and international businesses, demographic and socioeconomic processes of various scales (metropolization, interregional migration, depopulation, the flow of the working population into the service sector). Generally, in the last 20–25 years, the southern Russian regional economies demonstrated the stability of their sectoral structure and several main specializations. This allowed the South of Russia to remain as the leading granary of Russia, the epicenter of its tourist and recreational complex, the most important transport and logistics center in the international trade system. In 2000–2010, the development of the near-Caspian hydrocarbon resources became noticeably more active. The dynamic growth of the economy and social sphere of the South of Russia was largely ensured by the active development of the Azov-Black Sea zone, which concentrated a significant share of the human and economic potential of the macroregion. A new period in the social and economic dynamics of the South of Russia begins in the spring of 2022. The stable positions of the macroregion in the Russian agroindustry, the recreational sector and the system of transport communications give us reasons to believe that these economic niches will remain central ones for the South of Russia for the entire foreseeable future. But the scale of ongoing and upcoming changes makes inevitable a fairly significant correction in the southern Russian economic specializations of the second order, the current composition of which will respond to the international and all-Russian market conditions. It is currently not possible to predict the directions and timing of these shifts, since they will depend on the resulting set of factors of different scales that represent variables.

Retirement Is a Foreign Country: Work beyond Retirement and Elder Care in Socialist Bulgaria

In this article, I investigate state policies in socialist rule in Bulgaria, encouraging pensioners to work beyond retirement and their impact on eldercare. First, I argue that in the 1970s, Bulgarian pensioners began occupying economic niches similar to those of labor migrants in Western Europe. The policies actively promoting work after retirement were introduced in parallel with legislation encouraging older people to distribute their property among potential heirs as a donation instead of their last will. I argue that this combination of work beyond retirement and inheritance patterns had a negative impact on eldercare and should be taken into consideration when designing new policies addressed at working pensioners. The research is based on letters of complaint or denunciation from the 1970s, available in the Bulgarian State Archives.

The Place of Modernity: German Entrepreneurship in Western Siberia in the late 19th – early 20th Centuries

The study focuses on the issues related to the process of adaptation and economic behavior of German entrepreneurship in Western Siberia in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The construction of the Siberian Railway and migration processes changed the economy, social structure and cultural practices of “old” Siberia. The “yesterday’s outskirts” became a “place of modernity”. The paper aims at presenting economic practices and strategies of German entrepreneurship adaptation in the conditions when the socio-spatial structures of the imperial periphery. were experiencing transformation. On the basis of representative resources, the mechanisms and methods of German entrepreneurs’ adaptation to the local community are shown. The structure of the market space and its segmentation as well as economic niches and economic strategies of German entrepreneurship are defined. The author comes to the conclusion that German entrepreneurs acted in the region as a “market ferment” changing Siberian society, and they could be regarded as actors of socio-economic, cultural modernization of the Siberian space. At the same time, the German merchants themselves experienced external influence from the host society. The research is based on the combination of macroanalytical strategies and microhistorical approach. The concept of “entrepreneurial minority” is a methodological basis for the study presented in the paper. The materials of the paper are addressed to the experts in the field of the history of Siberia as well as to the professional corporation of the researchers interested in the history of ethnic entrepreneurship and in the issues of various ethnic groups’ adaptation to the conditions of a non-ethnic host environment.

When more than money talks: Multi-criteria decision analysis of fuel cells for sustainable power supply in Sub-Saharan minigrids

To close the gap of 500 million people living without access to electricity in rural Sub-Saharan Africa strategies of countries facing forced action rely on minigrid deployment. While recent studies on fuel cells in such energy systems are limited to technical and economic considerations, this paper performs a multi-criteria decision analysis to investigate their holistic fit into the economic, technical, environmental, and social system, comparing results against established power generation technologies. Findings from scenarios which shed light on 1. strategically important criteria according to academic expert opinions captured in a survey, 2. criteria decisive for actual market penetration of technologies and 3. future parameter and criteria in alliance with sustainable development, indicate the fuel cell to be highly suitable for rural power generation in minigrids. While large-scale centralized water electrolysis could improve the low economic performance – still major disadvantage – of stand-alone fuel cells, the authors see relevant future work to be made in the definition of economic niches and use-cases for decentralized hydrogen production, as reliability of supply and synergies to other end-uses are promising.

Implementation of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative in the post-Soviet space: pros and cons for Russia

The implementation of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative, designed as a fl agship foreign policy concept, in the post-Soviet space in modern conditions is associated with such processes as expanding the real horizons for launching investment projects, involving more participants, diversifying existing and developing new tools, clarifying the regulatory framework, etc. These trends, in turn, require updating the system of criteria and practices for cooperation between China and the post-Soviet states. Initially, the "One Belt, One Road" format was perceived as a concept of creating an acceptable investment and trade and economic space used to maintain regional stability and create investment attractiveness for more economic niches of the countries involved, on the one hand, and building a more or less stable geopolitical infl uence of China and fi nding new niches for the transnationalization of Chinese business, on the other hand. The dynamics of the growth of exports of Chinese technologies and ideas in the context of the post-Soviet region reveals, among other things, serious concerns of less infl uential participants interested in protecting national economies and maintaining the eff ectiveness of state regulation, which is associated at least with increasing the pace of economic development and the establishment of their own rules of the game by the Chinese side. Accordingly, the commercial and political elite of the People's Republic of China is interested in ensuring more trusting and open relations through the development of special free trade zones and the adjustment of public diplomacy methods.

The Stranger as Self and Other: Georg Simmel, Hermann Cohen, and the Significance of Jewish Difference

The Stranger as Self and Other:Georg Simmel, Hermann Cohen, and the Significance of Jewish Difference Adam Sutcliffe In his landmark 1908 essay "The Stranger," Georg Simmel links the Jews to his signature sociological type almost only in passing. In identifying the Jews as the "classic example" of an intruding outsider group that specializes in trade because all the productive economic niches in their host society are "already occupied," he makes clear that he considers this minority the strangers of history par excellence.1 He also associates the outsider stranger, in highly positive terms, with intellectual acuity and objectivity. He equates this objectivity with freedom, noting that the stranger, precisely because of his separation from the social world surrounding him, "is not bound by ties which could prejudice his perception, his understanding, and his perception of data."2 Objectivity was the most cherished intellectual value of the founding generation of German sociologists, among whom Simmel stood in the first rank. Alongside his colleagues Max Weber, Werner Sombart, and Ferdinand Tönnies, Simmel was deeply committed to establishing the credentials of this new discipline as an authentically scientific and "value-free" form of expert inquiry.3 In this context, Simmel's valorization of the objectivity of the stranger, as well as his association of this figure with the Jew, carried particular significance. Issues of ethnic and racial difference, which were attracting considerable attention in German public debate at [End Page 300] this time, posed a considerable challenge to the scientific aspirations of these early sociologists. Sombart and Weber argued that they could not neglect these topics—and in his The Jews and Modern Capitalism (1911), Sombart controversially engaged directly with them—while Simmel advocated a more cautiously aloof approach.4 Simmel absolutely did not want to argue directly for the exceptionalism of any particular ethnic group, and most certainly not of Jews. In his "Stranger" essay, he approached this topic obliquely and in a manner that was, on the surface, rigorously detached: he presents the Jewish case as simply one instance of the stranger phenomenon, straightforwardly explained by historical circumstances. Beyond this primary analysis, however, Simmel's essay also invites a highly personal reading. In associating the stranger with his own highest professional values, as well as with his ethnicity, Simmel theorized not only Jewish traders and financiers but also Jewish intellectuals such as himself. An unstated implication of the "The Stranger" is that Jews are particularly likely to be excellent sociologists—and perhaps especially baptized secular Jews such as Simmel, who were, in a sense, "double strangers," not fully belonging among either Jews or Christians. Simmel had already more extensively analyzed Jews as stranger traders eight years earlier, in his Philosophy of Money (1900). As a trading people in medieval Europe, he argued, the Jews were mentally shaped by their cultural isolation and their dependency on finance. This sharpened their logical faculties at the expense of their creative ones.5 Money, Simmel centrally argued in this book, promoted calculating, intellectual, "supra-personal" modes of thought. The Jews acquired this core characteristic of modernity precociously and with particular intensity. The "most brilliant example of this," he wrote, was Spinoza, whose philosophy gave expression to the most perfect objectivity of outlook: "nowhere are the incalculabilities of individuality allowed to break through the logical-mathematical structure of the unity of the world."6 Like many other secular Jewish intellectuals of his generation, Simmel identified with Spinoza, whose social position as a renegade Jew and highly original thinker in late seventeenth-century Holland seemed to foreshadow his own. Fascination with Spinoza's "Marrano" outsider [End Page 301] background and the association of this with the acuity and modernity of his insights has a long and enduring history.7 Standing firmly within this tradition, the heroization of Spinoza adorns Simmel's theory of Jewish distinctiveness, in which he combines a softly melancholy acceptance of inevitable cultural isolation and vulnerability with a discreet but nonetheless unmistakable assertion of intellectual superiority. The figure of the stranger features very differently in the almost contemporaneous work of another leading German Jewish thinker: Hermann Cohen. In his Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism, published posthumously in...

Forgone Innovation: Regulatory Lock-in and Elimination of Economic Niches

Forgone Innovation: Regulatory Lock-in and Elimination of Economic Niches

OBVIOUS AND HIDDEN SIGNS OF INCREASING CRISIS PHENOMENA IN THE STATE: PROBLEMS OF MANAGEMENT AND PERSONNEL OF ADMINISTRATIVE-TERRITORIAL REFORM

The purpose. The work is devoted to the identification and development of recommendations for their prevention of overt and covert signs of intensification of the crisis in Ukraine. The results. As a result of the analysis of the socio-economic situation in the country, obvious and hidden signs of intensification of crisis phenomena in Ukraine were revealed as a result of imperfect management and ignoring of personnel policy. The place and role of public scientific academic formations in the management of the state and local self-government bodies in the process of decentralization of state-administrative functions in the conditions of administrative-territorial reform were determined. A set of unresolved issues affecting the completion of an effective institutional territorial system capable of ensuring effective interaction between the state, local governments and business, based on clearly established rules and norms of their self-regulation. The most important factors for establishing partnerships between the state, local governments and business in the field of resource efficiency have been identified. Scientific novelty lies in the coverage of the activities and role of scientific academic public and state management structures in the formation of state personnel policy and the development of the ideology of local democratic self-government. It is established that the basis of relations between the state, local governments and business entities is the recognition of equality and independence of each of the participants. Based on the studied current state, the role of personnel policy in stabilizing the economy is determined. It is proposed to create mechanisms of interaction and business partnership in the conditions of formation of voluntary associations of territorial communities. The main goal of the reforms is highlighted, namely: strengthening cooperation between the state, local governments and businesses, which will clearly increase the welfare of the population and increase income and profits in society. Practical significance lies in the wide possibilities of using the results of the study in management and economic activity. It is known that the main task of today is the selection and placement of personnel, identifying the main areas of improvement, which allows managers to open new opportunities in the most popular and promising segmental economic niches that can stimulate economic development and involve the public and science.

Understanding motivations of citizens to reuse open data: open government data as a philanthropic movement

ABSTRACT The purpose of the article is to understand the socioeconomic conditions and driving forces that facilitate and motivate civic developers to reuse open data and create their own data-driven services, often on a free of charge, i.e., philanthropic basis. The recent emergence of myriad independent civic open data-driven projects in many parts of the world promise to propose new participatory ways to meet the needs of local communities and find cost-effective solutions to various issues at local levels of governance such as better urban planning, improvement of public transportation routes, crime rates mapping, assessment of public services, public scrutiny of lobbying activity, etc. However, the competitive market in the e-commerce sector often leaves little economic niches for independent civic developers to hope for big revenues from the promotion of such projects, especially considering the fact that the vast majority of them are implemented at local levels and their target audiences are usually small to ensure even economic self-sustainability. In this regard, the purpose of the paper is to understand what motivates civic developers, who often call themselves technically savvy citizens or independent developers, to step in and begin to reuse open data, which is published by local governments, considering that the creation of such data-driven projects is time and money consuming business, and, more importantly, elaborate on what kind of challenges these civic stakeholders face on the way.

Correction to: On the emergence of ecological and economic niches

Correction to: On the emergence of ecological and economic niches

12. Comment composer avec la concurrence ? Le cas de l’imprimerie vénitienne, 1469-début XVI e siècle

L’imprimerie vénitienne à la fin du XV e et au début du XVI e siècle permet d’observer une situation de mise en concurrence de divers acteurs, sans régulation de l’activité. Ces acteurs doivent pourtant collaborer dans le cadre d’une activité très demandeuse en capitaux. Cela aboutit à la création de niches économiques et sociales permettant la confiance nécessaire aux collaborations, mais aussi à des phénomènes oligopolistiques.

Entrance into and negotiation of the US labor force by immigrant women workers: a case study of samba in Los Angeles

ABSTRACT Due to the heterogeneity of immigrant women's experiences, we recognize the need to provide a more comprehensive portrayal of how gender shapes their labor force participation and work experiences. To study immigrant women employed in feminized work, this article uses the concept of gender as a social construction that informs, conveys, and adjusts power relations to explain how and why immigrant women occupy gendered jobs and to assess persisting inequalities and the unexpected benefits of gendered work. To illustrate this, we examine immigrant women in Los Angeles working in an ethnic niche: Brazilian samba dance. Our qualitative research on this case offers the opportunity to analyze the complexity of labor force dynamics. We discuss how the interaction of gender, nationality, race, and body aesthetic shapes our understanding of how immigrant women carve out economic niches, negotiate stigmas, and resignify gender relations through work. We conclude that work grants immigrant women power over (re)productive choices and the resistance needed to (re)define practices by challenging and conforming to social gender and work norms.

On the emergence of ecological and economic niches

The origin of economic niches, conceived as potential markets, has been mostly neglected in economic theory. Ecological niches emerge as new species evolve and fit into a web of interactions, and the more species come into existence, the more (exponentially or power-law distributed) ecological niches emerge. In parallel fashion, economic niches emerge with new goods, and niche formation in economics is also exponentially or power-law distributed. In economics and ecology alike, autocatalytic processes drive the system to greater and greater diversity. Novelty begets novelty in a positive feedback loop. An autocatalytic set of self-enabling transactions feed back upon one another in combinatoric fashion to generate progressive diversity. While these combinatorial dynamics cannot be prestated, the model explains the “hockeystick of economic growth”—a pattern of prolonged stasis followed by a sudden takeoff, such as occurred during the Industrial Revolution or the Cambrian explosion in ecology. Several implications derive from our niche emergence model, including the idea that the evolutionary process of technological change is not something we do; rather, it happens to us.

Trajectories toward maximum power and inequality in resource distribution networks

Resource distribution networks are the infrastructure facilitating the flow of resources in both biotic and abiotic systems. Both theoretical and empirical arguments have proposed that physical systems self-organise to maximise power production, but how this trajectory is related to network development, especially regarding the heterogeneity of resource distribution in explicitly spatial networks, is less understood. Quantifying the heterogeneity of resource distribution is necessary for understanding how phenomena such as economic inequality or energetic niches emerge across socio-ecological and environmental systems. Although qualitative discussions have been put forward on this topic, to date there has not been a quantitative analysis of the relationship between network development, maximum power, and inequality. This paper introduces a theoretical framework and applies it to simulate the power consumption and inequality in generalised, spatially explicit resource distribution networks. The networks illustrate how increasing resource flows amplify inequality in power consumption at network end points, due to the spatial heterogeneity of the distribution architecture. As increasing resource flows and the development of hierarchical branching can both be strategies for increasing power consumption, this raises important questions about the different outcomes of heterogeneous distribution in natural versus human-engineered networks, and how to prioritise equity of distribution in the latter.

The pricing of open access journals: Diverse niches and sources of value in academic publishing

Open access (OA) publishing has created new academic and economic niches in contemporary science. OA journals offer numerous publication outlets with varying editorial philosophies and business models. This article analyzes the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) ( n = 12,127) to identify characteristics of OA academic journals related to the adoption of article processing charge (APC)-based business models, as well as the price points of journals that charge APCs. Journal impact factor (JIF), language, publisher mission, DOAJ Seal, economic and geographic regions of publishers, peer review duration, and journal discipline are all significantly related to the adoption and pricing of journal APCs. Even after accounting for other journal characteristics (prestige, discipline, publisher country), journals published by for-profit publishers charge the highest APCs. Journals with status endowments (JIF, DOAJ Seal) and articles written in English, published in wealthier regions, and in medical or science-based disciplines are also relatively costlier. The OA publishing market reveals insights into forces that create economic and academic value in contemporary science. Political and institutional inequalities manifest in the varying niches occupied by different OA journals and publishers.

Cotton Capitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era by Michael R. Cohen

Reviewed by: Cotton Capitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era by Michael R. Cohen David S. Koffman Michael R. Cohen. Cotton Capitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era. New York: New York University Press, 2017. Pp. 288, 29 b&w illus. Hardcover $40. ISBN 9781479879700. Cotton Capitalists is a significant contribution to the growing scholarship on the relationship between economy and ethnicity, in the context of the American South, in American Jewish history, and certainly more broadly. It contributes to literatures that explore Jewish economic behavior, ethnic niche economy networks, the intersections of global finance, investment giants and small businesses, and social history's much deserved a ention to money and business. The work is finely nuanced, clearly articulated, and brings a wealth of new detail and data to the dramatically changing realities of the co on industry during Reconstruction, and the American Jews who shaped and were shaped by it. It argues that Jewish entrepreneurs' ability to thrive in the co on south was owed to the credit relations they forged among one another as Jews, all the while as structural forces—economic, climactic, and geographic—shaped the realities of the co on industry for all who found a place within it. Cohen offers a detailed rendering of the fates and fortunes, rises and falls, of Jewish co on businesses from roughly 1850 to 1890, and simultaneously, a broad analysis of the industry as a whole in its local, southern context, connected as it was to a broader national and global market. The book is an ethnic niche market case study of the ways that smaller and larger Jewish co on outfits managed the changing dynamics and circumstances of the industry—from the ecological and technological, to the geopolitical and corporate/finance—forces that were largely determinative of these firms' abilities to succeed or fail. While the book is not wholly convincing that this case study, in and of itself, can shed light on any other ethnic niche economy—Korean grocers, Greek restauranteurs, Filipino health care workers, or for that ma er Jews in any number of other economic niches in the United States—there is li le doubt that a similar bundle of elements mixed to shape the possibilities for individuals, families, and firms to enter a given market, succeed in it, or fail, and that there would be much to gain if and when these histories of niche economies began comparing their findings. Cohen's oft-repeated phrase "right place, right time" (and its inverse) is convenient shorthand for his broad observation that a swirl of competing forces bear down upon all parties in this and any industry. The book consists of an introductory chapter, six substantive chapters, and a conclusion, and draws from an impressively wide range of sources, including R.G. Dun credit reports, private corporate records, newspapers, family and private papers, and government and private sector analyses of the co on industry. Cohen uses these different sorts of traces scrupulously, and carefully considers the sorts of conclusions that can be drawn from credit reporters who held Jewish merchants in low regard and with distrust. The first chapter deals with the late 1850s and early 1860s, when Jewish peddler-cum-shopkeepers entered the co on market and challenged the [End Page 255] factorage system upon which the industry rested. Ethnic ties, and the credit and trust relationships they facilitated, helped Jewish success in the decade before the Civil War. Chapter 2 focuses on Jewish co on merchants during the war years. It shows how Jews navigated northern trade blockades by smuggling co on to markets, avoided Confederate currency, stockpiled the commodity to survive tenuous years, and began building the new business networks that would prove essential after the war. Chapter 3 studies the immediate postwar business ecology when local credit networks gave way to larger financial structures centered in places like New York and Liverpool. Chapters 4 and 5 use a telephoto lens to show how credit flowed between Jewish and non-Jewish firms of varying sizes to finance the co on industry on two "tiers" of the ethnic network—the larger credit-supplying filial network of Jewish financiers in New York, New...