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This dissertation analyzes the relationship that developed between the British Army and the United States Army between 1917 and 1941. Although those two forces operated as allies during World War I, both nations’ leaders grew frustrated with each other following the Armistice and the Treaty of Versailles. Officers in both armies built on their positive wartime experiences, however, to ensure their armies viewed each other as prospective allies should a future global conflict arise. In the two decades after World War I, personal exchanges initiated by individual officers and information sharing between these two armies improved relations and encouraged cooperation in a number of areas. The resulting cordiality that spread to a majority of the officers in both armies manifested itself in their socializing, reports, war plans, professional journals, and personal papers. Long before President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill took steps toward forming the Anglo-American alliance during World War II, their nations’ armies laid the military foundation for the special relationship. / History

This thesis analyzes Japanese patent agents’ business in international patenting activities during the interwar period. The patent system in Japan has been open to foreign inventors since the country became a signatory of the Paris Convention in 1899. According to the Patent Law, all patents from abroad had be submitted to the Patent Office through the hands of the local agents. The key brokering role of these agents in international technology transfer around the patent system, however, has long been overlooked. This thesis investigates their technology intermediation using a mixed method: employing a fine-tuned Optical Character Recognition (OCR) model and natural language processing tools, I create a new dataset including the agents recorded in all patents granted in Japan from 1922 to 1940. Additionally, guided by the macro, quantitative analysis, this thesis also rediscovers various scattered primary sources to reconstruct the agents’ business scope and individual career. This thesis employs the theories on brokers and brokerage from sociology and anthropology, particularly examining the agents’ position in the international information network through the analytical lenses of brokers, gatekeepers and compradors. The main findings are that a specialized subdivision of this occupation focused specifically on the international patenting activities during these two decades, and a few of the most prestigious agents managed to balance their domestic and foreign clienteles. They actively aided foreign patentees in filling applications in Japan and finding local buyers for their inventions. Their business also extended to the neighboring countries, and particularly to Manchukuo, as the intellectual property protection institutions were slowly established in this region, simultaneously with the expansion of the Japanese Empire. As the only established specialist group in East Asia, these agents were an organic part of the emerging international professional community. Among these agents, the foreigners working in Japan and their successors sought to connect directly with international clients, while the large local patent agents relied more on transnational liaisons to reach foreign inventors.

This diploma thesis investigates propaganda practices of the Czechoslovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs applied especially to the local press of Vienna during the interwar period. The aim of the thesis is to explain the reasons that made the Czechoslovakian authorities take these steps and to reconstruct the events surrounding the subsidizing of the Vernay publishing house. A part of the investigation is an analysis of the press published under this house (Der Tag, Die Stunde, Die Börse, Die Bühne, Die Sphinx and business books of Compass) - its history, political orientation, columns, journalists, characteristics, etc. The emphasis is placed on changes brought by the Czechoslovakian influence. The thesis studies activities of the journalists (not only in Vernay's newspapers) during the crucial moments of the history of the Austrian - Czechoslovakian relations (e.g. the Austro-German Customs Union of 1931) and then draws conclusions on the effectiveness the propaganda. In this regard, the aspects seen as the most problematic are especially the non-loyalty of some of the journalists, a wide awareness of the propaganda in both countries, and a choice of newspapers intended for the purpose of propaganda.

The positive contribution of finance to the process of economic development has been debated ever since Joseph Schumpeter famously argued in 1911 that services provided by finance are essential for technological innovation and growth. A substantial theoretical literature has produced increasingly sophisticated economic models endogenising the role of finance into the growth process, while empirical studies have put forward data to detect the link between the two. Yet a large part of the empirical surveys operate with macroeconomic or cross-section data and have little to say about the channels through which finance affects growth. This is where this dissertation comes in. It provides firm-level data from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia from the period 1919-1941 to tackle a number of questions related to finance, banking, and economic performance of the European economic periphery. The analysis is broadly divided into three parts – capital flows and the effects of international investment on domestic firms, banks and the real sector during the Great Depression, and the political economy of government intervention during the Depression and post-Depression period. The first substantive chapter (chapter 2) contributes to the literature on growth and capital flows by testing the hypothesis that foreign direct investment brings about productivity improvements to host economies via the channels of technology, liquidity and know-how transfer, as opposed to market access or increased competition. Chapter 3 revisits the prominent debate over the origins of the banking crises during the Great Depression and the effects these had on the real sectors. Evidence is provided in support of the debt deflation theory of banking crises, but the broad effects of the Depression on banks’ and firms’ balance is also explored. The higher the involvement of banks with industry both directly (via interlocking directorates or equity ownership), and indirectly, via the lending channel, the greater the negative effects of the crisis on banks’ balance sheets. The evidence points to negative feedbacks from bank distress to firms’ output losses in the form of a credit crunch. Chapter 4 uses a political economy framework to analyse the state interventions in the Balkan economies during and after the Depression. The data suggests that direct and indirect bailouts of banking and industry defined the role of the state. Government cronies from the financial and economic elite, as well as the agricultural sector ended up as winners from the process, while semi-skilled and unskilled labour paid the tax bill. These quantitative findings are in agreement with the broad conclusions of transaction cost economics where finance can play an important sorting role. They also support the empirical literature that rejects the contributions of portfolio investment but argues that direct foreign investment is a source of technological progress. The conclusions of the thesis, however, call for caution as market failure in the financial sector was abundant and political economy frictions could cause lasting damage to development.

African Americans have a rich history of activism, but their involvement in affecting change during the interwar period is often overlooked in favor of post-Civil War and post-World War II coverage. African Americans also have a rich history of reaching out to the international community when it comes to that activism. This examination looks to illuminate the effect of the connections African Americans made with the rest of the world and how that shaped their worldview and their activism on the international stage. Through the use of newspapers and first-hand accounts, it becomes clear how African American figures and world incidents shaped what the African American community in the United States took interest in. In Paris, however, musicians explored a world free from Jim Crow, and the Pan-African Congresses created and encouraged a sense of unity among members of the black race around the globe. When violence threatened Ethiopians through the form of an Italian invasion, African Americans chose to speak out, and when they saw the chance at revenge against fascists they joined the Spanish Republic in their fight against Francisco Franco. In the interwar period African Americans took to heart the idea of black unity and chose to act in the interest of the black race on the international stage. Their ideas and beliefs changed over the course of the two decades between the World Wars, eventually turning thoughts into actions and lashing out against any injustice that befell any member of the black race.

This thesis explores how the practice and profession of architecture was increasingly understood and discussed in terms of the public in the first half of the twentieth century through six case studies. In the age of universal suffrage, architects began to recognise that, in order for the profession to flourish, the built environment would have to respond to the demands of public opinion and publicity, and that design would need to appeal to the 'man in the street' if the profession was to establish its position in the new culture of democracy. 'Architecture and the Public in Interwar Britain' thus challenges the view that the mainstream of interwar British architecture was parochial and backward looking, and seeks to reintegrate the stories of many well-known but academically neglected projects and controversies into twentieth century architectural history, which remains dominated by attempts to nuance the privileged narrative of the growth and 'triumph' of Modernism and the International Style. Instead, I argue that architecture is better conceived as a broad discourse involving a number of agents of diverse positions and attitudes struggling with common critical and professional challenges. The first section of the thesis considers architecture in the Imperial Metropolis. After offering a re-reading of 66 Portland Place, the headquarters of the RIBA, through the lens of professional anxieties in the interwar years, it considers two controversial rebuilding projects: Regent Street and Waterloo Bridge. The thesis then considers architecture and publicity in the suburbs, offering close readings of factories along the new arterial roads out of London, in particular the Guinness Brewery and Gillette Factory amongst others. The final section of the thesis unpicks the idea of the civic centre in interwar Britain through the contrasting examples of Southampton Civic Centre and lastly Norwich City Hall.

Ernest Mercier est l’un des patrons les plus influents de l'entre-deux-guerres en France. Ses différentes activités industrielles l'ont conduit à siéger sur de vastes pans de l’économie française, notamment du secteur énergétique. La thèse retrace la carrière pétrolière d'un homme qui a joué un rôle central pour le développement d'une industrie devenue stratégique, mais qui est embryonnaire lorsqu'il rejoint ce secteur après la Première Guerre mondiale. Mercier assiste et assure la création d'une industrie pétrolière nationale. Les obstacles se font légion contre les ambitions pétrolières de la France. Elle se présente bien tard sur un marché étroitement contrôlé par de puissants trusts. La recherche et l'exploitation pétrolière demandent d'importantes ressources, et aucune société française n'a les moyens d'une politique indépendante. Certaines banques se lancent alors dans les affaires de pétrole en s'alliant aux grands trusts internationaux. C'est le cas de Paribas; la gestion de ses avoirs roumains représente la première expérience de Mercier dans ce secteur. L'État s'intéresse aussi au pétrole, il devient un acteur incontournable. Le gouvernement français n'a pourtant pas les moyens de ses ambitions dans le domaine pétrolier. La politique nationale mise en place durant l'entre-deux-guerres doit faire appel à l'épargne privée française. La création d'une compagnie nationale, la Compagnie française des pétroles, en 1924 regroupe ainsi les différentes banques et sociétés intéressées au pétrole. Mercier est personnellement choisi par le président Raymond Poincaré pour mener à bien cette mission. Cette carrière s'articule donc autour d'un fragile équilibre entre milieux privés et gouvernement. Mercier devient rapidement l'intermédiaire incontournable qui régit ces relations. La thèse s'appuie sur les archives bancaires et industrielles, mais aussi sur celles du gouvernement français et de ses différents ministères. Cette analyse de la carrière d'Ernest Mercier permet de retracer les origines du secteur pétrolier français et l'action déterminante d'un homme. Elle expose les mécanismes d'influence d'une puissante banque d'affaires et les conflits d'intérêts qu'engendre l'exploitation pétrolière. / Ernest Mercier is one of the most influential business managers in interwar France. His different industrial activities led him to oversee large areas of the French economy, notably in the energy sector. This thesis examines the career in oil of the man who played a central role in the development of an industry that became strategic but was still nascent when he joined this sector after First World War. Mercier assisted and oversaw the creation of a national oil industry. The obstacles in the path of France's oil ambitions were legion. The country was a latecomer on a market that was largely controlled by powerful foreign trusts. The search for oil and its exploitation require important resources which no single French company possessed on its own. Certain banks thus decided to approach oil business by allying themselves with the different international trusts. This was the case for the French bank Paribas, whose Romanian holdings Mercier managed. In this context, state intervention became necessary, although the government did not have the means to achieve the full scope of its ambitions in the oil sector. The national oil policy formulated during the interwar period had to involve French private interests. The creation of a national oil company, the Compagnie française des pétroles, involved several banks and industrial companies interested in oil. Mercier was personally chosen by French president Raymond Poincaré to take up this task. His career revolved around a fragile equilibrium between private interests and state intervention. Mercier rapidly became the intermediary that managed these relations. The thesis makes use of banking and industrial archives but also of government records. This analysis of Ernest Mercier's career enables us to review the origins of the French oil sector and the determining role of one man. It exposes the influence mechanism of a powerful French business bank and the conflicts of interest that oil exploitation engenders.