Noblemen in business in the nineteenth century: thesurvivalof an economic elite?*
这篇导言介绍了关于19世纪欧洲和亚洲贵族商业活动的特刊文章，探讨贵族对经济的贡献、企业家精神以及欧亚精英的异同，对经济史和商业史研究者有参考价值。
This editorial introduces the 10 articles included in the special issue on ‘Noblemen-entrepreneurs in the Nineteenth Century. Investments, Innovation, Management and Networks’. The collected works focus on the business activities of noblemen in Europe and Asia, thus offering up opportunities for comparison in an age of economic expansion and globalisation. What was the contribution of the nobility to the economy? Can we consider noblemen to have been endowed with an entrepreneurial spirit? What differences or similarities can we draw between the European and Asian elites? In this introduction, we give a synthetic overview of the relevant issues in the broad topic of the collection and their importance to business history, and briefly present the accepted articles. As two of the articles deal with the Japanese case, while the others focus on Europe, we have dedicated specific sections to the European and Japanese nobilities.