A sweeping global history of entrepreneurial innovationWhether hailed as heroes or cast as threats to social order, entrepreneurs-and their innovations-have had an enormous influence on the growth and prosperity of nations. The Invention of Enterprise gathers together, for the first time, leading economic historians to explore the entrepreneur's role in society from antiquity to the present. Addressing social and institutional influences from a historical context, each chapter examines entrepreneurship during a particular period and in an important geographic location.The book chronicles the sweeping history of enterprise in Mesopotamia and Neo-Babylon; carries the reader through the Islamic Middle East; offers insights into the entrepreneurial history of China, Japan, and Colonial India; and describes the crucial role of the entrepreneur in innovative activity in Europe and the United States, from the medieval period to today. In considering the critical contributions of entrepreneurship, the authors discuss why entrepreneurial activities are not always productive and may even sabotage prosperity. They examine the institutions and restrictions that have enabled or impeded innovation, and the incentives for the adoption and dissemination of inventions. They also describe the wide variations in global entrepreneurial activity during different historical periods and the similarities in development, as well as entrepreneurship's role in economic growth. The book is filled with past examples and events that provide lessons for promoting and successfully pursuing contemporary entrepreneurship as a means of contributing to the welfare of society.The Invention of Enterprise lays out a definitive picture for all who seek an understanding of innovation's central place in our world.

Foreword by Carl J. Schramm viiPreface: The Entrepreneur in History by William J. Baumol ix
Acknowledgments by William J. Baumol and Robert J. Strom xv


Introduction: Global Enterprise and Industrial Performance: An Overview by David S. Landes 1
Chapter 1: Entrepreneurs: From the Near Eastern Takeoff to the Roman Collapse by Michael Hudson 8
Chapter 2: Neo-Babylonian Entrepreneurs Cornelia Wunsch 40
Chapter 3: The Scale of Entrepreneurship in Middle Eastern History: Inhibitive Roles of Islamic Institutions by Timur Kuran 62
Chapter 4: Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship in Medieval Europe by James M. Murray 88
Chapter 5: Tawney's Century, 1540-1640: The Roots of Modern Capitalist Entrepreneurship by John Munro 107
Chapter 6: The Golden Age of the Dutch Republic Oscar Gelderblom 156


Chapter 7: Entrepreneurship and the Industrial Revolution in Britain by Joel Mokyr 183
Chapter 8: Entrepreneurship in Britain, 1830-1900 by Mark Casson and Andrew Godley 211
Chapter 9: History of Entrepreneurship: Britain, 1900-2000 by Andrew Godley and Mark Casson 243
Chapter 10: History of Entrepreneurship: Germany after 1815 by Ulrich Wengenroth 273
Chapter 11: Entrepreneurship in France by Michel Hau 305


Chapter 12: Entrepreneurship in the Antebellum United States by Louis P. Cain 331
Chapter 13: Entrepreneurship in the United States, 1865-1920 by Naomi R. Lamoreaux 367
Chapter 14: Entrepreneurship in the United States, 1920-2000 by Margaret B. W. Graham 401
Chapter 15: An Examination of the Supply of Financial Credit to Entrepreneurs in Colonial India by Susan Wolcott 443
Chapter 16: Chinese Entrepreneurship since Its Late Imperial Period by Wellington K. K. Chan 469
Chapter 17: Entrepreneurship in Pre-World War II Japan: The Role and Logic of the Zaibatsu by Seiichiro Yonekura and Hiroshi Shimizu 501
Chapter 18: "Useful Knowledge" of Entrepreneurship: Some Implications of the History by William J. Baumol and Robert J. Strom 527


List of Contributors 543
Index 545