Doctoral research [1982, Vol. 9, no. 1]

              The Accounting Historians Journal
Vol. 9, No. 1
Spring 1982
DOCTORAL RESEARCH
Maureen H. Berry, Editor UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
This current selection of dissertations provides a long-range per-spective on the interrelationships between trade and the growth of economic, political, and social institutions in a number of different countries.
Andrews takes the lead with his account of multidisciplinary re-search into the role of the salt trade in developing the Maya civili-zation during the dawn of the common era. Moving into more mod-ern times, we take up the first of several studies involving the great rival nations of France and Spain. Berger's theme is a familiar one: the influence of financial administration on war and its outcome. By the middle of the 17th century, France's prolonged war with Spain had brought her to the verge of bankruptcy and attempts to raise money led to the civil disturbances of the Fronde. After lead-ing us through these events, Berger introduces his "great man": a dissertation approach which has grown in popularity recently. This leading figure was Foucquet whose ambiguous dealings in State financial paper led to personal disaster but national triumph. The money which Foucquet raised went to pay for the army. The army was victorious and France was on its way to becoming the greatest power on the Continent of Europe.
Longfellow's analysis of the labor movement in Lyon during the final years of the ancien regime, its political strategies and alliances to achieve social goals, and its taking to the streets during the Revo-lution, rings with familiar parallel events in Eastern Europe. The weavers won their struggle for separate identity, but only to see these social and political gains swept away by a public policy, in their case, laissez-faire economics. While France was experiencing complete and rapid change in all its institutions, its best friend and best enemy, Spain, was benefitting from its own significant change in economic policy. McWatters' study of the royal tobacco monop-oly in New Spain is an important analysis of the process and im-plications of shifting from private to public ownership. Further, it