Editor's Introduction

This past June, the Business History Conference held its annual meeting in Toronto. Special thanks go to Rick Halpern and Camille Harrison of the Centre for U.S. History at the Munk Centre for International Studies for their excellent work on local arrangements. The program committee of Mark Rose (chair), Florida Atlantic University; Rick Halpern, University of Toronto; Pamela Laird, University of Colorado-Denver; H. V. Nelles, McMaster University; Rowena Olegario, Vanderbilt University; and Richard Sylla (BHC president, 2005–2006), New York University, assembled a splendid program. The 2007 conference will be held in Cleveland, Ohio, May 31 to June 2. Please visit the BHC Website for more information (http://www.h-net.org/~business/bhcweb/).

Highlights of the 2006 meeting included a number of distinguished awards for scholarship in the field. The Business History Conference Lifetime Achievement Award was received by K. Austin Kerr, Ohio State University; the Harold F. Williamson Prize by Pamela Laird, University of Colorado-Denver, who also received the Hagley Prize for the best book in business history published during the preceding two years. The Herman E. Krooss Prize for Best Dissertation in Business History went to Shane Hamilton, University of Georgia (PhD, MIT 2005). The Newcomen Article Prize for best article published in Enterprise & Society was received by Tony Webster, Edge Hill College, for "An Early Global Business in a Colonial Context: The Strategies, Management, and Failure of John Palmer and Company of Calcutta, 1780–1830," Enterprise & Society 6 (March 2005). And the K. Austin Kerr Prize for best first paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Business History Conference by a new scholar went to Michelle Craig McDonald, Harvard Business School.

I acknowledge once again the contributions of my co-workers here at Florida International University, Coordinating Editor Elisabeth O'Kane, and Editorial Assistants Chris Calvo and Yael Philips. Their work has been vital to assuring the high quality and timely production of this journal. We continue to be grateful to the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Business Administration at Florida International University for their support. My thanks to the associate editors of the journal, our editorial board, to the staff at Oxford University Press, and to all of you who have generously given your time to review manuscripts and contribute book reviews.