In the research programme we set as our starting point the intention to define clearly, through the research of various aspects of the short- and long-term restructuring of the traditional economic and social image of Slovene society over the arc of a century and a half, the extent, depth and dynamics of these changes. Our basic research goals were the major social and economic changes the most prominent of which are defined by the following processes: de-agrarianisation and industrialisation in the economic sphere and urbanisation and the accompanying change in lifestyle in the social sphere. These are closely interwoven and causation-conditioned processes that raise numerous research questions and problems. Within the framework of the research programme, we placed the following economic/social phenomena and processes at the centre of the research interest: formation of the economic system, changing structure of the Slovene economy, the role and importance of commercial interest associations, economic policy with an emphasis on agricultural, industrial and monetary policy, financing commercial initiative and the related shaping of the Slovene banking system, triggering enterprise, level of technology of the commercial sector, different economic and social ideologies, violence and society, advertising and long-term changes in lifestyle and standard of living of the population (housing, clothing, food, personal hygiene, environmental hygiene, tourism). Knowledge of Slovenia's economic and social past enables studies comparing Slovenia's economic and social development with that of similar countries or the immediate (central-European) and more distant (European) surrounding area. This enables an objective comparison and an evaluation of Slovenia's social economic and social development and of the special features and characteristics of Slovenia's development in every wider and narrower economic/political environment. At the same time it delineates Slovenia's place in these environments and its part in the processes and lines of force that have not been simply a Slovene feature but a characteristic of the environments in which Slovenes lived in the past.