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1. Robert Maxwell’s Expectations Gap: Regulation and Reputation in the British Communications Industry, 1981-91

Author:
Charlie Harris
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
During Robert Maxwell’s turbulent lifetime, the world knew him as one of the most successful businessmen in Britain, presiding over a publishing and media empire in direct competition with that of Rupert Murdoch. In 1991, Robert Maxwell died – at which point the world discovered that he was, in fact, far beyond bankrupt. As banks called in their huge loans, accountants found that his empire boasted £2 billion in debt. When he drowned, various auditors and authorities were close to catching him in an enormous fraud. Maxwell had stolen around £460 million from his employees’ pension funds and committed extensive stock fraud in order to manipulate the share prices of his empire. Accusations of fraud and mismanagement dogged Maxwell’s career, but to little effect. Beginning with a single publishing house, he built a media empire. His rivalry with Rupert Murdoch – and perhaps his emotional state, which was notoriously volatile and competitive – drove him to expand at an unsustainable pace, which he supported with confidence trickery and enormous loans. His debts quickly outstripped his assets. Desperately scrambling to repay the loans, he turned to stock fraud and his employees’ pension funds. Still desperate for capital six months before his death, Maxwell floated his largest-ever venture – Mirror Group Newspapers – which successfully attracted £250 million in investment, despite the destitution of its parent company. Public autopsies concluded that the blame lay not just with Maxwell, but with advisers, regulators, and complicit financial institutions. Maxwell killed himself (though some still speculate he was murdered) shortly before a scheduled meeting that would have uncovered his fraud. Maxwell did not leave his family destitute, but they no longer had immediate access to the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed. His sons continued working in the City of London. His daughter, Ghislaine Maxwell, continued to circulate in high society. Her crimes are now better known than her father’s; she is famous for her work as Jeffrey Epstein’s right-hand woman, procuring victims (often under-age) for Epstein’s “prostitution ring” (something of a misnomer, as the term implies consent). Both scandals implicated some of the most powerful figures of their day, and in both cases, th
Topic:
Communications, History, Capitalism, Industry, and Robert Maxwell
Political Geography:
Britain and Europe

2. Ching Shih and the Pirates of the South China Coast: Shifting Alliances, Strategy, and Reputational Racketeering at the Start of the 19th Century

Author:
Charlie Harris and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
At the end of the 18th century, China’s coastal Kwangtung Province was a pirate’s dream. Colonial cargo ships sailed along Kwangtung’s coastline transporting increasingly valuable goods ripe for liberation. Among the countless waterways that drained into the South China Sea, fugitives could easily find shelter, and bandits could easily prepare an ambush. Chinese authorities found the surrounding archipelago of roughly 700 islands impossible to explore, providing the pirates further cover. Locals described this maze of canals, rivers, estuaries, and deltas that connected with the ocean, the ‘inner sea’. Outsiders often ran aground while pursuing or fleeing the pirates, who had grown up plying its labyrinthine waters. Looking further inland, a mountain range separated Kwangtung geographically and economically from the rest of China, acting as a buffer against easy intervention by the Chinese Emperor. As a last resort, the pirates could also quickly flee west across the national border into Vietnam.
Topic:
History, Piracy, Capitalism, Alliance, Trade, and Reputation
Political Geography:
Asia and South China Sea

3. Mansa Musa I of Mali: Gold, Salt, and Storytelling in Medieval West Africa

Author:
Christopher McKenna and Charlie Harris
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
In 1312, the reigning emperor of Mali – Mansa Abubakari Keita II – sent 200 manned boats and 100 support boats containing supplies to sail until they found the edge of the Atlantic. After a long excursion, one boat returned. Its captain bore only a horror story about the whirlpool that had swallowed his comrades. Unimpressed (and perhaps obsessed) the emperor chose to make the expedition himself – this time with a retinue of 3,000 ships. He chose his deputy, Musa – a member of the court with no blood relation to the king – to act as ruler in his absence. The deliberate appointment, untainted by the hereditary rule that has produced so many poor monarchs, is likely a testament to the character and abilities of Musa.
Topic:
History, Natural Resources, Capitalism, Currency, Trade, and Atlantic World
Political Geography:
West Africa and Mali

4. Volkswagen Since World War Two: Rebuilding the Corporate Reputation of the World’s Largest Car Manufacturer

Author:
Charlie Harris, Jamie Haworth, Scarlett Mansfield, and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
The VW badge is a common sight around the world. Driven by millions across Europe and the Americas, Volkswagen automobiles are also familiar to consumers across Latin America, Africa and Asia. The German carmaker’s cultural resonance is hard to miss: most famously, the Volkswagen Beetle ‘Love Bug’ is romanticised in stories of the 1960s counterculture. Alongside the iconic Volkswagen Type 2 camper van, the Beetle came to symbolise freedom and adventure for many young people in the United States. Given this, it is perhaps easy to forget the company’s roots did not exactly emphasise peace and love. Volkswagen started out in late-1930s Germany as a Nazi-funded prestige project; Adolf Hitler took a personal interest in the early development of the Beetle, seeing it as the vehicle that would motorise the Third Reich and displace Ford’s Model T as the “People’s Car”. Burdened with one of the worst origin stories imaginable, Volkswagen needed to put distance between itself and Nazi Germany in the postwar period. To achieve this, it refocused its factory towards delivering the Volkswagen Beetle: a cheap, reliable product that it hoped would appeal to domestic and export markets alike. The iconic car came to be embraced by diverse communities from around the world over the following decades, transforming the German carmaker into a company with a global ubiquity by the 1980s. Its portfolio expanded to include sports cars and trucks, while its factories employed workers across the globe. Entering the new millennium full of ambition, Volkswagen strove for growth in new markets and dominance in long-standing car cultures; in the process, the crisis-prone company attracted a new set of risks to its corporate reputation.
Topic:
History, Business, Manufacturing, Automotive Industry, and Reputation
Political Geography:
Germany and Global Focus

5. The Boom and the Busts: Mendocino County's Agricultural Revolution

Author:
Charlie Harris and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
California’s Mendocino County is a single-industry economy. Arriving in the sixties, marijuana cultivation gained a momentum in Mendocino that local government eventually began perceive as unstoppable, filling an economic void once occupied by lumber and fishing. Remote, permissive, boasting near-perfect outdoor growing conditions and conveniently situated between San Francisco and Portland, Oregon – two cities with something of a reputation for the consumption (and nationwide distribution) of marijuana. This convergence of assets, along with the benefit of timing, have led Mendocino County to draw growers – whether seasoned professionals or hopeful amateurs – from all over the world.
Topic:
Economics, History, Capitalism, Economic Growth, and Economic Policy
Political Geography:
United States and California

6. The “A1” Reputation of the Lloyd’s Register of Shipping

Author:
Charlie Harris and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
For over two hundred years, Lloyd’s Register has surveyed and classified ships. Founded in 1760 in a coffeehouse on London’s busy Lombard Street, the company then known as the Society for the Registry of Shipping, surveyed and classified the seaworthiness of ships. For the first time, underwriters and merchants could gain an idea of the condition of the vessels they insured and chartered while ship builders and shipowners could demonstrate seaworthiness. Lloyd’s classified the best as “A1.” This term would become the Register’s greatest contribution to the popular lexicon and, ever since, the phrase “A1 at Lloyd’s” connotes the highest quality. As the Second Industrial Revolution took hold in the nineteenth century, new concerns about standardization arose and, with them, battles to decide what organisations had the authority to dictate standards. Victory was generally determined by some combination of reputation, expertise, luck, timing, state sanction, and the quality of the standard proposed. Lloyd’s Register was able to set the standard for how ships should be built. While the Register technically only classified how ships should be insured, this financial motive (tied to safety and reliability) was a fitting starting point from which to define how maritime safety could be codified and guaranteed.
Topic:
History, Capitalism, Trade, Insurance, and Shipping
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, and Global Focus

7. Between the Market and the Land: the Mechanisation of Quinoa

Author:
Charlie Harris
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
Farmers on the agricultural plains of the Andes, which tower 12,000 feet above sea level, are endowed with little arable land. The southern altiplano (high plain) in Bolivia endures temperatures far below zero degrees Celsius for at least two hundred days a year, seasoned with up to 250 millimetres of annual precipitation – rain, hail and snow, season depending.1 For some 7,000 years, the premier crop in the altiplano has been a seed (frequently mistaken for a grain) called quinoa. It’s a gluten-free nutritious phenomenon: rich in iron, vitamins, minerals, high-quality proteins and amino acids. It is also hardy enough to survive hostile Andean winters. Historically, quinoa was so important as to be sacred to the Inca people. Tradition held that the emperor himself would sow the first seeds of the season with ceremonial tools made of solid gold. Seeds have been found in indigenous tombs and at significant burial grounds; it fuelled the empire’s army and played a role in its religious ceremonies. This considered, it is of little surprise that the Spanish conquistadores banned its cultivation, replacing it with wheat cereals in a process of culinary colonialism.2 Quinoa survived, and its consumption fluctuated – but persisted – for centuries.
Topic:
Markets, History, Food, Capitalism, Quinoa, and Mechanization
Political Geography:
South America and Peru