In recent years there has been a revival of interest on both sides of the Atlantic in the men who control private business. The businessman has always been a somewhat more interesting figure to the popular mind in the United States than he has in Britain. The prestige of the businessman in the United States undoubtedly fell during the first third of the twentieth century as middle-class progressives labelled successful ones ‘robber barons’, as the novelists of the 'twenties etched out the Babbitt type, and the Great Depression shook popular faith in their former heroes. During the past fifteen years academic interest in the businessman has soared. The careers of historical figures are being reassessed, particularly in the light of Joseph Schumpeter's emphasis upon the individual ‘innovator’ who was said to have been able to influence the course of economic development. Other writers are filling in the details of what the executive in a large modern corporation ought to be, as well as what he is. Surveys of the social origins and careers of business executives have found their way into Fortune magazine and the more popular Life, to mention but two examples.

Perhaps revival is not the right word to use in connexion with Great Britain, for there the myths about industrial giants have never become part of popular tradition as they did in America.