Andrea Colli and Andrea Lluch Introductory Note: Franco Amatori and Comparative Business History T his special issue of Business History Review on “Business History around the World” provides an opportunity to recognize the unique and continuing contribution of Franco Amatori, longtime head of the business history group at Bocconi University, renowned historian of Italian industry, Honorary Foreign Member of the American Historical Association, and recipient of the 2019 Business History Conference’s Life- time Achievement Award. Among his many interests, Amatori is a strong advocate of comparative approaches to business history. Amatori’s com- mitment to a comparative analytical perspective to research can be sum- marized by quoting one of his favorite sentences, often repeated to those who have worked with him: “You need to know at least two things if you want to really understand one.” This comparative approach has often found expression in international business history and the comparison of business development in different nations and regions. Hence this issue, with articles on business history in China, Colombia, India, Mexico, Russia, and Switzerland, is a natural extension of an approach to the field that Amatori has long advocated. Amatori, who was born in the city of Ancona on the Adriatic Sea, studied political science in Florence and took an early interest in compar- ative history. This focus developed, in part, when he received a scholarship from the Fulbright Commission to visit the United States, where he spent three semesters, in 1978 and 1979, in the individual studies program at Harvard, under the direction of historian Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. Chandler, then the Isidor Straus Professor of Business History at Harvard Business School, was a pioneer in comparative business history. One of his earliest books, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise (1962), compared four large American companies—DuPont, General Motors, Standard Oil New Jersey, and Sears, Roebuck and Company—and their decision Business History Review 96 (Summer 2022): 237–244. doi:10.1017/S0007680522000496 © 2022 The President and Fellows of Harvard College. ISSN 0007-6805; 2044-768X (Web). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007680522000496 Published online by Cambridge University Press