With only a few years under its belt, the fledgling Bulletin found itself thinking the unthinkable - and perhaps pondering its own mortality - as the world staggered from the Crash of 1929 toward the abyss of the Depression. Emblazoned on the magazine's December 1931 cover was the phrase "The End of Capitalism," the title of an article based on a talk by HBS professor J. Anton de Haas to the School's International Club. Declaring that "the international world is in a terrible condition," de Haas expressed "doubt as to the future of capitalism" but saw the bleak times as a possible "golden age" during which spirit-ual advances might overtake the forces of materialism.

Throughout the 1930s, Bulletin articles dealt gamely with a dark side of business barely imaginable to most of the magazine's current readership - bank runs, depression, New Deal programs, and the resuscitation of a critically ill world economy. To the Bulletin's credit, its concern went beyond U.S. shores to include substantial coverage of the international business situation, as well as lengthy, analytical articles on individual countries such as Japan, Russia, and China. Then came even darker premonitions - HBS professor Deane Malott wrote in 1935 that Hitler's government "dominates through the medium of fear," and Professor Philip Cabot warned of widespread conflict in "The Crisis Which Confronts the Nation" in 1940.

Even while reporting on HBS and alumni contributions to the World War II effort, the Bulletin's long-term focus was on getting back to business as usual, with articles such as "Business, Global War, and the Future" in 1943 and the "Postwar Outlook for Business" in 1944.

In the 1950s and 1960s, scores of articles - frequently authored by HBS professors - dealt with overseas postwar recovery and economic and development issues in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Indeed, prescient Bulletin editor Dan Fenn pushed the subject on an indifferent audience ("Our surveys indicate alumni aren't much interested in matters international"), insisting that an international component was "a new dimension being added to business today and, in the process, the jobs of managers are being changed" (1960). And so the magazine regularly ran articles with an international outlook, such as "Advices from Abroad" (1953), which solicited the views of foreign-born and overseas HBS alumni on U.S. business and trade practices. A 1954 interview with Dean Donald K. David detailed his findings about European business after a three-month trip throughout England and the Continent. The Bulletin reported on HBS collaboration with several countries in establishing schools of management overseas and continued its coverage of individual countries in both the industrialized and the developing world.

In recent decades, the Bulletin's focus on international developments has intensified as it reports on the School's new Global Initiative, the establishment of HBS research centers worldwide, sweeping curriculum changes to reflect increasing globalization, and the activities and views of overseas alumni.

Now more than ever, just as it can truly be said that the sun never sets on HBS alumni, so too does the Bulletin's global reach extend further than ever before.

- Garry Emmons