American Business Abroad: Ford on Six Continents

American Business Abroad: Ford on Six Continents, by Mira Wilkins and Frank Ernest Hill, documents the first sixty years of Ford Motor Company's international expansion. Ford Motor Company introduced Americans to the first affordable car. Based on Ford's extraordinary company archives, this book traces the company's rise as a multinational enterprise. Following the export of the sixth car produced by the company, Ford opened its first plant abroad in its second year of business and quickly expanded around the world, building a business that by the mid-1920s spanned six continents. It faced wars, nationalism, numerous government restrictions, and all the perils of operating across borders. First published in 1964, this book has lasting value in reminding readers of the long and uneven path of globalization. It is a major contribution to global economic history. In addition, Ford's history offers useful lessons today for both participants in the global economy and students of international business.

Mira Wilkins is Professor of Economics at Florida International University. She has also taught at Columbia University, Union College, and Smith College. Her expertise is on the history of multinational enterprise. She is the author of many books and articles, including The History of Foreign Investment in the United States, 1914-1945 (2005), which was a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title and the co-winner of the Hagley Book Prize for the Best Book in Business History. Her latest book (co-authored with William J. Hausman and Peter Hertner) is,Global Electrification: Multinational Enterprise and-Inder national Finance in the History of Light and Power, 1878-2007 (Cambridge, 2008). Frank Ernest Hill (1888-1969) was a freelance writer, author, and editor. He taught English at the University of Illinois, Stanford University, and Columbia University and served as editor-in-chief of Longmans, Green Co. for six years. He published The Winged Horse (1927) and a translation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1931), and he participated in Allan Nevins' study of Rockefeller and co-authored a major three-volume Ford Motor Company history with him.