Building on Air: The International Industrial Gases Industry, 1886-2006

by Raymond G. Stokes, Ralf Banken

Overview

The industrial gases industry originated in 1886, when a London-based company began producing high-purity oxygen. Initially, purified oxygen was a solution in search of a problem, but demand for it soared early in the twentieth century with the emergence of welding technology. By then, dramatic technological improvements in air separation and purification had emerged, as had most key firms dominating the industry today. Building on air in the decades that followed, the firms expanded their product range and geographical reach to create applications that were essential to every manufacturing process in the modern world, from semiconductor production to oil refining, waste water treatment, and steel-making. This is the first scholarly history of this vital but invisible industry from its origins to the present. Based on unparalleled access to company and public archives, the book explores business and technological development, industrial evolution, and the industry's local roots and international and global reach.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107033122
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/20/2015
Pages:	479
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Since 2005, Raymond G. Stokes has held the Chair of Business History at the University of Glasgow, where he also serves as Director of the Centre for Business History in Scotland. His book The Business of Waste: Great Britain and Germany, 1945 to the Present (with co-authors Roman Köster and Stephen Sambrook) was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.

Ralf Banken is a Privatdozent at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt and a researcher in the Department of History at the University of Cologne.

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. Defining an Industry, 1886–1914: 1. From oxygen to industry; 2. Competition and cooperation in expanding markets to 1914; Part II. Seeking Equilibrium in an Age of Turbulence, 1914–60: 3. Strategy and structure: from the Great War to the 1930s; 4. The Great Depression, the Second World War, and the industrial gases industry; 5. Reinventing the industry starting in the 1950s; Part III. Mass Production, Specialization, and Internationalization, 1960–80: 6. Internationalization of the industry: the UK and the European continent in the 1960s and 1970s; 7. Internationalization of the industry: the US market and the re-entry of the Europeans in the 1970s; 8. Broadening the stage; Part IV. Concentration, Consolidation, and Competition, 1980–2006: 9. Contested markets and industry challenges in the 1980s; 10. Globalization and growth through the turn of the twenty-first century; Conclusions.