Roger Lowenstein , Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist . Melbourne : Scribe , 2008 . 432 pp. ISBN : 9781921372490 . Paperback A$35 . It was disappointing to discover that this is a reprint of a book first published in 1995 and that its contents have not been updated to include Warren Buffett's career over the last (almost) two decades. Not having read this book when it first came out, however, I did find much in it to interest me. Lowenstein's style is very smooth and compelling. He offers no conclusive answer to the question that I think is most important in relation to Buffett's life as an investor: how much of his success is due to skill and how much is due to luck? From his paper rounds in childhood, Buffett was driven by the need to make a profit. His whole life was absorbed by the study of stock exchange data and company reports. While Buffett had a system for choosing companies, his research was indefatigable, and he did most of it himself. He was sceptical of investment bankers and other Wall Street analysts, and quite rightly so because they were not as committed to or as skilled at investing as he was himself. He was not swept along by the euphoria or by the despondency that periodically affected Wall Street. Buffett set up shop in a small office in Omaha. Much has been made of his lack of ostentation, although this has no relevance to his ability as an investor. Buffett was a devotee of Frank Graham's approach to value investing. As he gained experience and self-confidence, however, Buffett was prepared to diverge from Graham's penny-pinching strategy and to attach a high weighting to non-tangible factors such as the quality and integrity of management, the value of a company's brand, and the extent of barriers to entry. Buffett liked local monopolies. Buffett was not often a seller, and he had pet businesses. Berkshire Hathaway, a New England textile manufacturer, was a source of capital for Buffett in the early years, and of course ‘Berkshire Hathaway’ was adopted as the Buffett investment brand. Yet Buffett persisted with textile production for longer than might have been commercially justified, partly because he wanted to be seen as a decent citizen. Buffett's fascination with the exploits of the irascible nonagenarian Mrs B and the Nebraska Furniture Mart was in a sense another distraction. At the same time, talking about Mrs B was a means of grounding the Buffett empire in mid-Western virtues and of comforting his loyal but often uncomprehending investors. Insurance was one of Buffett's specialities. He started with the Government Employees Insurance Company. With his interest in probability and risk, Buffett had a genuine expertise in this industry. Over the years he was able to develop successful new insurance products, especially in the branch of reinsurance. Buffett did not believe in excessive diversification, and he did not shun large companies. Among the major US firms in which he invested were American Express, Coca Cola, the Washington Post, Wells Fargo Bank, and Salomon Brothers. With a few exceptions, including Salomon Brothers, which was in deep trouble, and his favourite newspaper interests, Buffett was reluctant to get involved in management. He was usually supportive of existing managers and kept his distance from everyday decision making. His job was to allocate capital among current and prospective Berkshire Hathaway holdings. Buffett made a series of large bets after making an exhaustive analysis of risk and expected return. This made him one of America's two richest men, the other being Bill Gates, whose own route to success was very different. Of course Buffett was lucky. But he also possessed remarkable insight, diligence, and a cooler head than any of his peers. So it was 50 per cent brilliance, 50 per cent luck, perhaps. This book is well worth reading.

Wheat production stagnated in France during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, while cultivated acreage and wheat output declined sharply around the Mediterranean from the 1870s. Wheat output never recovered in this region despite the introduction in 1885 of tariff measures, such as the 1892 Méline Tariff. This paper analyses the response of Mediterranean wheat growers to changes in local rainfall and to variations of the duty on imported grains. It uses regional level data for nine administrative divisions located on or near the Mediterranean and assesses the impact of rainfall on yields. It argues that an interplay of protectionist policies and environmental conditions explain the decline of wheat production.

was the compleat economic historian.He insisted upon using good theory, displayed sensitive understanding of institutions and was indefatigable in gathering comprehensive empirical evidence to test and explain his propositions.Indeed he went beyond the strictures of his discipline and also linked his economic

The conventional story of Australian economic history is worth challenging. Rather than just assuming a national economy with conventional turning points such as Federation, economic historians would do well to investigate more complex processes like the interplay between regions, races and development, and the changing patterns of interaction with the outside world. The big question for economic historians is whether in the future they can undertake economic research which informs history and so contributes to the national debate.

State wage‐fixation tribunals developed quite particular patterns of basic wage fixation during the Depression. They declined to follow the Commonwealth Court's 10 per cent wage cut, thereby confining its effect to about half the workforce and creating distinctly different State and Commonwealth basic wage patterns in each capital city. Further, tribunals' uneven patterns of basic wage adjustment to deflation meant that in some states, the real State basic wage increased. Patterns of state institutional behaviour and state politics therefore help explain the stickiness of real average wage levels during the Depression.

Book reviewed George Megalogenis, The Longest Decade. Melbourne: Scribe, 2006. 346 pp. ISBN: 1 920769 79 X. Paperback A$32.95. Reviewed by James Bennett University of Newcastle Leonie V. Still, Corporate Elders –‘Organisation Men’ Look Back. Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 2006. 235 pp. ISBN: 1 920694 61 7. Paperback A$39.95. Reviewed by Peter Carroll University of Tasmania William Coleman, Selwyn Cornish and Alf Hagger, Giblin's Platoon: The Trials and Triumphs of the Economist in Australian Public Life. Canberra: ANU E‐Press, 2006. xv + 263 pp. ISBN (print): 1 920942 49 1. ISBN: 1 920942 50 5. A$24.95, free access online. Reviewed by Gary Hawke Victoria University of Wellington Helen B. Laurenson, Going Up, Going Down: The Rise and Fall of the Department Store. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2006 reprint (2005). 165 pp. ISBN: 86940 341 X. Paperback NZ$34.99. Reviewed by S.R.H. Jones University of Dundee United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, World Investment Report 2005: Transnational Corporations and the Internationalization of R&D. New York and Geneva: United Nations, 2005. xxxii + 332 pp. ISBN: 92 1 112667 3. US$75. Reviewed by Paul L. Robertson University of Tasmania/University of Queensland Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy, The ‘Vanity of the Philosopher’: From Equality to Hierarchy in post‐Classical Economics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. xviii + 323 pp. ISBN: 0 472 11496 4. Hardback US$40. Reviewed by John Singleton Victoria University of Wellington Derek H. Aldcroft, Europe's Third World: The European Periphery in the Interwar Years. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. 217 pp. ISBN: 0 7546 0599 X. Hardback £50. Reviewed by Kirsten Wandschneider Middlebury College