Merger Mania.

For three consecutive years, between 1995 and 1997, the value of mergers and acquisitions in the United States increased to record levels. Some 27,600 companies joined forces, more than in the entire decade of the 1980s. In 1999 even more companies hastened to unite into behemoth corporations created by the "merger mania."

Rockefeller's Revenge.

When in December 1998 Exxon and Mobil agreed to merge, pundits immediately labeled the $86.355 billion deal "Rockefeller's Revenge." Both companies originated as part of John D. Rockefeller Sr.'s Standard Oil monopoly, together accounting for more than half of the Standard Oil Trust until the Supreme Court disbanded it on 15 May 1911. In 1998 as well, Amoco, also a scion of Standard Oil, agreed to be purchased by British Petroleum (BP) for $55 billion. The following year, BP acquired the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), another successor of Standard Oil, for S33.7 billion. Initially, the U...