Large industrial enterprises are an important phenomena in advanced Western economies. They control large percentages of total industrial assets, employ millions of workers and together with their dependent satellite firms produce their own spatial patterns of employment, location of production capacity and flow of material and information, and thus dominate the economic base of whole towns. This study, first published in 1980, surveys a massive amount of work on large industrial firms, and features an in-depth study of the growth of large industrial enterprises in the UK brewing industry from 1951-76. This illustrates many of the themes discussed in the book.