Thomas Cochran's enduring contribution to the study of American history is his careful delineation of business history as a distinct portion of the discipline. He earned the sobriquet dean of business history for his steady insistence, over the better part of a career spanning a half-century, that this field was rightly separate from economic history. Moreover, he is credited with the concept that business is the single institution which has, since colonial times, most influenced the course of American social change.

Cochran reasoned that history, to be successful, must be useful and attractive to a general audience. He urged historians to challenge the traditional reliance on narrative and the continual search for new facts as the essence of their quest, suggesting instead that scholars probe the level beneath unique events and seek out relationships, patterns, and generalizations. He sought to take advantage of the methodological tools generally associated...