Private and Public Enterprise in Europe

Robert Millward is Professor of Economic History at the University of Manchester. His previous publications include Public and Private Ownership of British Industry 1820–1990 (1994) and The Political Economy of Nationalism in Britain 1920–50 (1995).

Review of the hardback: 'This is a riveting, wide-ranging analysis of the development of these technologically driven industries which is absolutely vital reading for historians of this period. It is interdisciplinary, internationally comparative and also easy to read. In many ways it makes an excellent companion volume to Millward's much earlier economics text Public Expenditure Economics (1971) and could, along with other texts such as Oz Shy's The Economics of Network Industries, provide the basis for a chronologically long, internationally wide-ranging and economically stimulating course on the international development of network industries.' Economic History Review

• Part I. Introduction: 1. Ideology, technology and economic policy; Part II. The Construction of the New European Infrastructure c. 1830–1914: 2. Infrastructure development and rights of way in the early nineteenth century; 3. Local supply networks, private concessions and municipalisation; 4. Railways and telegraph: economic growth and national unification; 5. Electricity supply, tramways and new regulatory regimes c. 1870–1914; Part III. Nations and Networks 1914–45: 6. Infrastructure development from the nineteenth to the twentieth century: an overall perspective; 7. The development of telecommunications; 8. Network integration in electricity supply: successes and failures; 9. Railway finances and road-rail competition; Part IV. State Enterprise 1945–90: 10. The new state, economic organisation and planning; 11. Coal, oil and security; 12. Airline regulation and the transport revolution; 13. Telecommunications: from calm to storm; 14. Economic policy, financial accountability and productivity growth; Part V. Conclusions: 15. The road to privatisation and de-regulation?