This book provides a succinct history of a medium-sized silk-weaving firm, Grout & Co, concentrating on the Canadian branch plant it set up following the First World War and operated for three decades. Extraordinarily full records of this proto-multinational firm’s management correspondence and verbatim records of Canadian government inquiries mean that a full account of the challenges the company faced is possible. Against a background of global depression and world war, a small and often divided management team struggled to cope with volatile customer preferences, changing tariffs, an uncommonly concentrated retail sector, rapid automation, the move from natural to artificial silk and an intrusive state before finally succumbing to post-1945 global liberalism. Many of the problems encountered by Grout & Co prefigure those faced today by the managers of SMEs dealing with the consequences of Brexit and President Trump.

Charles A. Jones is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Cambridge, UK. He worked at London University and the University of Warwick before moving to Cambridge in 1998. His published works treat aspects of British direct investment, theories of international relations and the ethics of war.