“Brighter Futures, Better Times”: Britain, the Empire, and Anglo–American Economic Competition in Cuba, 1898–1920

Review of periodical literature published in 2007

“…Brayshay et al. sample a dozen London‐based multinational enterprises in 1899–1900 and 1929–30, uncovering hundreds of interlocking directorships with other firms. In their view, this underlines the depth and sophistication of British corporate capitalism, a point that also emerges from McKercher and Enjamio's study of British financial consortia operating in Cuba before 1914 and Lees's analysis of Penang Rubber Estates Ltd, a London‐based free‐standing company trading in Malaya in the same period. It is one of the key safeguard mechanisms for shareholders and creditors, namely the rise of the company accountant, which interests Anderson et al. They show how membership screening by the newly created Institute of Chartered Accountancy helped define the nature of expertise in that profession in the late nineteenth century.…”