Reviewed by: IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon by James Cortada Lars Heide (bio) IBM: The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon By James Cortada. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2019. Pp. 728. Iconic company IBM and its predecessors dominated the punch card and the large or mainframe computer industries until the 1980s. First, under Herman Hollerith and Thomas J. Watson Sr., it shaped and reshaped punched card technology dating from the 1880s to the 1960s. Then, Watson’s son and successor, Thomas (Tom) J. Watson Jr., led the company in forming mainframe computers until the 1970s. The company’s history since the 1980s, however, is more complex. IBM developed the personal computer, then produced and sold millions of them, but earned less than anticipated from both its mainframe and PC activities. The company refocused to software and consulting, sold its PC operations in 2005, and the IBM brand became less conspicuous. The success of this influential American company has been the theme of many books, mostly focusing on IBM’s technology, business administration, or individual leaders. His academic training as a historian and career provide a unique background for writing this terrific work. Cortada was employed at IBM for thirty-eight years in sales, consulting, and managerial positions in the United States. He studied IBM’s history while at the company, giving him insight in especially the troubled period from the 1980s. The author discusses every aspect of the company’s strategy, business issues, technologies, and products. He explains sales and marketing practices in detail and their role in IBM’s corporate culture. The book also explores how various parts of IBM, customers, government officials, and the media impacted the company’s development. [End Page 978] Cortada’s work provides significant contributions to the scholarly discourse on the history of technology. First, this book is a comprehensive history of IBM, from its origins to the present. This is the first such history since the 1990s and is based on the large body of literature on IBM and the punched card and computer industry. Second, the discussions on the U.S. antitrust cases against IBM from 1952–56 and from 1969–82 show how these affected the company’s strategy and operations. The public antitrust discourse tends to portray the conduct and organization of large business corporations as an issue between them and consumers or public regulators. The complementary narrative, however, shows how government antitrust activities shaped companies. The author was at IBM during the final antitrust case—it lasted for twelve years and was ultimately abandoned by the government. He discusses the case’s economic cost for IBM and documents how it influenced the company’s strategy and operations during the investigations and afterwards. He argues convincingly that it was one reason for the company’s crisis from the 1980s. Third, the book’s most important contribution is its well-documented and coherent narrative and analysis of IBM’s problems since the 1980s. The author competently combines public media and company employees’ social media material with his own interviews with key individuals. IBM’s corporate culture nourished career possibilities, attracting talented individuals who stayed at the company for decades. From the 1980s, IBM’s shareholder-focused financial management dismantled the company culture, and employees came and went, reducing commitment to the company. In addition, the author argues that IBM had developed a corporate “sclerosis” of over-bureaucratization that impeded its ability to adapt. A generation of senior executives was out of touch and unprepared to respond to new consumer demand, in a way resembling the previous presidents’ responses. The momentum in emerging computer technologies shifted away from IBM. Cortada’s work engages with the scholarly management literature on the evolution of large businesses, illustrating how they can rise and fall. Historians of technology should read this well-written narrative to complement the extensive technology focused ICT literature and to appreciate the role of business administration and company culture in shaping technology. [End Page 979] Lars Heide Lars Heide is associate professor emeritus in business history at the Institute for Management, Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. He is the author...

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Le démarrage de la Guerre froide à la fin des années 1940 a suscité la prise de conscience du gouvernement américain quant à la vulnérabilité du pays face à une attaque de bombardiers soviétiques. Les systèmes existants de suivi des avions arrivant aux États-Unis étaient fondés sur la communication manuelle. Le département de la Défense les trouvait trop complexes. Voulant un système automatisé, il passa un marché avec le Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) à charge pour ce dernier de concevoir ce système automatisé, désigné sous le nom de Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE). Le MIT, institution d’enseignement supérieur et de recherche, n’était pas en mesure de produire en série de grands ordinateurs pour les besoins du système de défense aérienne. Par conséquent, le département de la Défense choisit de confier à une entreprise : IBM un marché en vue de concevoir et produire des ordinateurs modélisés par le MIT. Cet article analyse les processus et les méthodes appliqués au transfert de connaissances entre le MIT et IBM au cours de la construction de l’ordinateur au cœur du système SAGE, qui était plus avancé que l’IBM 701. Le transfert de connaissances fut planifié et mis en œuvre par des ingénieurs aussi bien du MIT que d’IBM. Les deux groupes voyaient cette innovation et ce transfert de connaissances comme un processus simple et rationnel visant à un but prévisible. L’article traite de la manière dont les complications liées au transfert de connaissances furent le produit de deux organisations complètement différentes, à savoir le MIT et IBM, travaillant une technologie non encore finalisée qui impliquait un mode d’innovation partagé.

Punched card tabulating equipment, invented and developed by Herman Hollerith, was the first mechanized means for compiling and analyzing statistical information. For over half a century, its continued improvement created and expanded the global information processing industry.

Auden wrote around the time of the war, and many of his poems include salutary lessons about and deep insights into the experience of soldiers and refugees in conflict situations (‘Refugee Blues’ for example). It is almost impossible to not notice the linking of stories on migration and the refugee crisis and the immediacy of terrorist threats on global news channels and in the press. November 2015 will be remembered for terrorist attacks in Paris and Mali. The attacks galvanised world governments to take a unified position on preventing and countering all brands of terrorism. The colours of the French flag have become idiomatic of resistance and resilience, and many have found solace in expressions of unity. This unity has also mobilised governments collectively to consider more actions, including air strikes in Syria. Overall, a cohesive, proportionate and dignified response is more likely to subvert the terrorist strategy that seeks to provoke extreme measures and consequential political unrest that might emerge in response to oppressive, discriminatory, draconian or persecuting measures. There are also media lessons to learn, to perhaps not overreport, a little like careful reporting of suicidal events to avoid epidemics, or more thoughtful language for describing mental illness to combat stigma. Despite humanitarian responses, at the same time there is a perceived threat from migrants and refugees; freedom of movement across borders in the EU is now proposed to explain how the Paris attacks were planned and executed in different countries. The risks of mental illness among migrants, refugees, victims of trauma and torture, those exposed to war and conflict are well established, so we might expect greater demands on mental health and social care services. Yet, following Paris, more resources will be committed to counter-terrorism, demonstrating a wider impact of terrorism on public health through the loss of investment and greater strain on public finance. As with all extreme and rare events, predicting terrorist attacks and countering them is not easy, and the evidence base for doing so is evolving and largely focused on those who have already raised suspicion about risk and threat to public safety. The impact on mental health is both through raised worries about the levels of perceived threat as well as the direct effects of trauma, loss, and shattered moral frameworks that are not easily restored. Other victims include those facing exodus and forced migration, perhaps fleeing conflict zones, by negotiating risky journeys and threats to their safety, identity and anticipated life plans. Children who face such experiences are unable to process powerful affects that arise in response to conflict are therefore more especially vulnerable. Garralda’s editorial in this issue (pp. 4–6) highlights how trauma might be a determinant of hallucinations, some of which may be clinically relevant. Violence in general is a major global threat to public health, especially gender-related violence and violence towards children and young people. Thirty-five per cent of women worldwide report intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence, and 30% of women in a relationship report physical or sexual violence by their partner; risk factors include low education, witnessing violence between parents, exposure to abuse during childhood and attitudes accepting violence and gender inequality. WHO suggests there are evidence-based primary preventive interventions including school-based programmes in highand low-income countries, microfinance combined with community initiatives tackling gender inequality; and improving communication and relationship skills. Furthermore, prevention should also target situations of conflict, post-conflict and displacement, as women often suffer more violence in such situations. Prevention of violent offending is a priority on which we need more evidence and insights from research in forensic psychiatry. Fazel et al ’s 10-country study (pp. 17–25) of over 12 000 people discharged from secure hospital shows significant mortality, suicide, readmission and reoffending rates, with recommendations for more targeted preventive interventions. Ouellet-Morin et al’s longitudinal study (pp. 42–47) shows that MAOA gene-related risks of future antisocial behaviour interact with the levels of violence to which young children were exposed. Children exposed to war, conflict and forced migration surely are at risk of such outcomes and this mandates preventive interventions at times of conflict. Adversity may trigger stress pathways that contribute to risks of future psychosis, perhaps through sympathetic and parasympathetic moderation. New research shows low vagal tone to be important, as it may explain the very common finding of poor emotional regulation and impaired executive function in schizophrenia (Clamor et al, pp. 9–16). Childhood adversity may also explain obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD); Brooks et al (pp. 34–41) report that larger brain volumes may reflect neurodevelopmental pathology in adults with OCD, driven perhaps by historical experiences of childhood adversity. This issue of the BJPsych also reports new findings on affective disorders, dementia, and OCD. Alzheimer’s disease and dementia generally are a major threat to public health, although good scientific progress is now being made on better identifying the role of amyloid protein (see Harrison & Owen, pp. 1–3). Identifying endophenotypes should help improve targeting of future treatments. For example, López-Solà et al (pp. 26–33) show complex phenotypes of comorbid anxiety and OCD. Previous studies of ethnic density show low associations with higher risks of schizophrenia and selfharm but the study by Du Preez et al (pp. 49–55) suggests no associations with postnatal depression and personality in general. Visual impairment seems important for the development of seasonal affective disorder and this may help to better understand affective disorders more generally (Madsen et al, pp. 56–61). Suicidal thoughts and anxiety persist longer in those with the melancholic subtype of depression (Lamers et al, pp. 62–68), offering an opportunity to better identify this subgroup for more active and intensive treatment. Two interventions for affective disorders seem to be very effective: functional remediation improves psychosocial outcomes in bipolar disorder (Bonnin et al, pp. 87–93) and internetbased acceptance and commitment therapy in depression (Potts et al, pp. 69–77). Yatham et al’s study of adjunctive treatments in acute bipolar depression (pp. 78–88) shows that agomelatine is no better than placebo, an important negative finding with definitive treatment consequences. A clear positive or negative finding helps to improve practice, and so psychiatric research is flourishing producing incremental advances, yet in contrast, we know so little about terrorism and why people attack the countries in which they are raised and secure. Better knowledge, research and preventive applications of psychiatric, forensic and behavioural sciences must be given as much priority as counter-terrorism and preparedness if we are to truly prevent and protect, and nurture positive mental health.

its timber trade business and a limited agricultural sector represents an inland economy. Spydeberg near to Christiania in contrast represents a rich agricultural area which was economically integrated with Norway’s major urban centre. The west coast fishing communities of Norway are represented by Herøy and Austrheim. The quantitative analysis of inventories does not give very different results compared to other studies of inventories, regarding inequality or composition of goods recorded. Most interesting are instead the results from the two concluding chapters (5 and 6), also based on inventories, in which the author looks at changing consumption patterns from the perspectives of comfort and breakability. Hutchinson is hesitant to ascribe changing consumption patterns to emulation mechanisms, an important factor in the consumer revolution model promoted by McKendrick et al., instead she stresses the importance of connections, price mechanisms and other factors. The introduction of new foodstuffs during the eighteenth century, e.g. alcoholic beverages, chocolate, coffee and tea, were frequently promoted by medical arguments. There was also a shift from a protein-rich diet to a diet based on carbohydrates such as grains and potatoes, although compared with sugar and tobacco the introduction of the potato took place at a much slower pace. There is plenty of qualitative and quantitative evidence for the development of Norway towards a market economy; there is also plenty of evidence for changing consumption patterns including an increase in consumption of new goods. There is room for criticism regarding, for example, the use of price series and quantitative methods in the study. This also means that comparisons of consumption levels, incomes per capita and similar between Norway and other countries should be considered with much care. Yet, the book makes at least three important contributions. First, it presents the complex and in many ways different story of Norway’s path to a market economy to an international audience. Second, it provides an original perspective of this path by focusing on the household consumption level and by introducing the concept of industrious revolution to the economic history of eighteenth-century Norway. Third, it provides a detailed and rich picture of this path drawing on a mixture of novel source material.

Industrial production of office machines emerged in the 1880s and grew extensively until the Second World War. Although sales and applications of punched-card machines expanded in the interwar years, the key-set office machine industry lost dynamics and ultimately collapsed. The lack of scale and scope improvements in the development of key-set office machines was the major reason for this sharp contrast.

The paper analyzes John Presper Eckert and John William Mauchly's endeavours to design, sell, and build the revolutionary new technology of the first large, commercial computers. It discusses how Eckert and Mauchly's conceptualization of the computer grew out of their ENIAC and EDVAC projects at University of Pennsylvania. They incorporated their own business to gain profit from production and attain the freedom needed to develop their revolutionary new computer technology through a series of small, separate computer projects with private and government customers. It approaches innovation as a chaotic process and uses uncertainty to conceptualize the basic relations between actors and organizations.

This paper discusses the various ways that patents and standards framed a challenger's opportunities. It recounts the history of the Bull punched card system, both in Norway in the 1920s and France in the 1930s, as it developed and became a challenger to IBM's monopoly. Bull faced the first mover's patents and standards differently. Standards paved the way for the challenger's actions, while patents hampered certain facilities for their duration.