Cambridge University Press Dudley Docker: The Life and Times of a Trade Warrior

Dudley Docker (1862–1944) was one of the most powerful European businessmen of his era, through his secretiveness and taste for intrigue served to obscure his importance. This book is a feat of detection and historical reconstruction which establishes him as a figure of substantial influence. Like all good business history it transcends narrow departmental interests. It is a solid mixture of business, economic, political, social and even diplomatic history. It sketches the life and times of Docker: it describes the deals he fixed, recounts the rise and fall of the companies he directed, but also recreates the milieu in which he worked and portrays British socio-economic history from his standpoint. The book's chief theme is the decline of British industrial hegemony since 1880.