A comparative history of the economic organisation of energy, telecommunications and transport in Europe.

Robert Millward is Professor of Economic History at the University of Manchester. His previous publications include Public and Private Ownership of British Industry 1820-1990 (1994) and The Political Economy of Nationalism in Britain 1920-50 (1995).

Part I. Introduction: 1. Ideology, technology and economic policy; Part II. The Construction of the New European Infrastructure c. 1830-1914: 2. Infrastructure development and rights of way in the early nineteenth century; 3. Local supply networks, private concessions and municipalisation; 4. Railways and telegraph: economic growth and national unification; 5. Electricity supply, tramways and new regulatory regimes c. 1870-1914; Part III. Nations and Networks 1914-45: 6. Infrastructure development from the nineteenth to the twentieth century: an overall perspective; 7. The development of telecommunications; 8. Network integration in electricity supply: successes and failures; 9. Railway finances and road-rail competition; Part IV. State Enterprise 1945-90: 10. The new state, economic organisation and planning; 11. Coal, oil and security; 12. Airline regulation and the transport revolution; 13. Telecommunications: from calm to storm; 14. Economic policy, financial accountability and productivity growth; Part V. Conclusions: 15. The road to privatisation and de-regulation?