Maddox, Robert Franklin 1942-2002

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Maddox, Robert Franklin 1942-2002

PERSONAL:

Born December 31, 1942, in WV; died September 30, 2002. Education: Morris Harvey College (now the University of Charleston), B.A., 1964; Marshall University, M.A., 1966; University of Kentucky, Ph.D., 1974.

CAREER:

St. Albans High School, St. Albans, WV, history teacher and head of social sciences program, c. 1964-65; Marshall University, Huntington, WV, faculty member in history department, beginning c. 1966, associate professor, beginning c. 1974, professor, 1992-2002, director of oral history of Appalachia program, 1978-83, chair of history department, 1980-83, associate provost and dean of the graduate school 1983-86, acting vice president for institutional advancement, director of development, and executive director of the Marshall University Foundation, 1984-87, executive assistant to the president for Research and Economic Development and Outreach, 1987-92, director of graduate studies, 1995-2002.

MEMBER:

Organization of American Historians, Oral History Association of the Mid-Atlantic Region, West Virginia Historical Association (former president).

WRITINGS:

The Senatorial Career of Harley Martin Kilgore, Garland (New York, NY), 1981.

(With David R. Woodward) America and World War I: A Selected Annotated Bibliography of English-Language Sources, Garland (New York, NY), 1985.

The War within World War II: The United States and International Cartels, Praeger (New York, NY), 2001.

Member of editorial board, West Virginia History, 1979-2002. Scholarly peer reviewer for several professional journals, including West Virginia History.

SIDELIGHTS:

Robert Franklin Maddox was an American historian whose research interests in World War II, postwar international business environment, and the role of cartels in creating and managing business deals and arrangements led to the publication of his 2001 study The War within World War II: The United States and International Cartels. Here Maddox details issues dealing with international cartels from the beginning of World War II through the occupation of Japan. Writing for EH.net Book Reviews, Daniel Barbezat predicted that the book will "serve as a good reference for economic and business historians." Barbezat further explained that Maddox's work is "really about how wartime investigations led to the post-war reform policies of the US conducted in both Germany and Japan." These reforms led to the breakdown of cartels in those economies.

Divided into two parts, The War within World War II first looks at the investigations of how Japanese and German cartels furthered the war efforts of their respective countries and how these foreign cartels sometimes involved U.S. firms. These included, for example, connections regarding patents between the German I.G. Farben and the American companies Standard Oil and Dupont. In the second half of the book, Maddox examines the decartelization policies initiated in the postwar world by the United States. Barbezat concluded: "This book will serve as a reference to those interested in the inter-war and post-war formation of US policy on international collusion."