This is a detailed account of the British and German steel industries' performance during three decades that were marked by dramatic change. Relying on governmental and corporate archives as well as on the contemporary trade literature, Professor Wengenroth has drawn a meticulous picture of how managements in the two countries met the strategic problems raised by these changes. The author does not however merely trace technological developments; rather, he uses them as a backdrop for a contribution to the long-running debate on Britain's relative industrial decline in the late nineteenth century.