This history illustrates how entrepreneurship and innovation transformed the New Zealand economy in the 19th century-an otherwise bleak period in international economics. Drawing on case studies and historical evidence, this analysis explores the typical characteristics of these businessmen-"What qualities did they display? What role did they play in economic expansion?"-and discusses how small, local firms took advantage of industrial giants' protracted movements.

Ian Hunter is a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland Business School. He is a business historian, whose research has been published in journals such as Australian Economic History Review and Business History Review, and the author of David Levene: A Man and his Business and Robert Laidlaw: Man for Our Time. He is a former professor at Massey University and the Centre for International Business History at the University of Reading and the former director of the Auckland Business History Project. He also served as a joint editor of City of Enterprise: Perspectives on Auckland Business History.