Table Of ContentBoulevard of Broken Dreams: Why Public Efforts to Boost
Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Have Failed—
and What to Do About It, BY JOSH LERNER
THE INVENTION OF
ENTERPRISE
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
FROM ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA
TO MODERN TIMES
EDITED BY
DAVID S. LANDES, JOEL MOKYR, & WILLIAM J. BAUMOL
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS • PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Copyright © 2010 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William
Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The invention of enterprise : entrepreneurship from ancient Mesopotamia to modern times / edited by David
S. Landes, Joel Mokyr, and William J. Baumol.
p. cm. (The Kauffman Foundation series on innovation and entrepreneurship)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-14370-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Entrepreneurship-History. I. Landes, David S. II. Mokyr, Joel. III. Baumol,
William J.
HB701.I58 2010
338'.0409-dc22 2009034315
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
Published in collaboration with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Berkley Center for
Entrepreneurial Studies, New York University
This book has been composed in Sabon
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword
CARL J. SCHRAMM
Preface
The Entrepreneur in History
WILLIAM J. BAUMOL
Acknowledgments
WILLIAM J. BAUMOL AND ROBERT J. STROM
Introduction
Global Enterprise and Industrial Performance: An Overview
DAVID S. LANDES
Chapter 1
Entrepreneurs: From the Near Eastern Takeoff to the Roman Collapse
MICHAEL HUDSON
Chapter 2
Neo-Babylonian Entrepreneurs
CORNELIA WUNSCH
Chapter 3
The Scale of Entrepreneurship in Middle Eastern History: Inhibitive Roles of
Islamic Institutions
TIMUR KURAN
Chapter 4
Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship in Medieval Europe
JAMES M. MURRAY
Chapter 5
Tawney's Century, 1540-1640: The Roots of Modern Capitalist Entrepreneurship
JOHN MUNRO
Chapter 6
The Golden Age of the Dutch Republic
OSCAR GELDERBLOM
Chapter 7
Entrepreneurship and the Industrial Revolution in Britain
JOEL MOKYR
Chapter 8
Entrepreneurship in Britain, 1830-1900
MARK CASSON AND ANDREW GODLEY
Chapter 9
History of Entrepreneurship: Britain, 1900-2000
ANDREW GODLEY AND MARK CASSON
Chapter 10
History of Entrepreneurship: Germany after 1815
ULRICH WENGENROTH
Chapter 11
Entrepreneurship in France
MICHEL HAU
Chapter 12
Entrepreneurship in the Antebellum United States
LOUIS P. CAIN
Chapter 13
Entrepreneurship in the United States, 1865-1920
NAOMI R. LAMOREAUX
Chapter 14
Entrepreneurship in the United States, 1920-2000
MARGARET B. W. GRAHAM
Chapter 15
An Examination of the Supply of Financial Credit to Entrepreneurs in Colonial
India
SUSAN WOLCOTT
Chapter 16
Chinese Entrepreneurship since Its Late Imperial Period
WELLINGTON K. K. CHAN
Chapter 17
Entrepreneurship in Pre-World War II Japan: The Role and Logic of the
Zaibatsu
SEIICHIRO YONEKURA AND HIROSHI SHIMIZU
Chapter 18
“Useful Knowledge” of Entrepreneurship: Some Implications of the History
WILLIAM J. BAUMOL AND ROBERT J. STROM
List of Contributors
Index
Foreword
THE IMPORTANCE OF HISTORY to understanding entrepreneurship cannot be
underestimated. Through history, we see the power, the resilience, and the
complexity of this phenomenon. We gain a better understanding of the changing
nature of entrepreneurial activity over time. We learn more about the complex
web of social and institutional influences on entrepreneurship. And we develop a
broader awareness of the impact of entrepreneurship over time—on individuals
and on society as a whole.
Historical work in this area complements the increased attention to
entrepreneurship among economists in recent years. Among many other topics,
economists have elucidated a great deal about firm formation, growth, and death;
the institutional influences on entrepreneurship; the demographic and personality
characteristics of entrepreneurs; and the important role of entrepreneurship in
economic growth. While economic theory and models offer a great deal of
insight, history offers a different lens to view entrepreneurship. It allows us to
understand specific examples at a deeper level, to probe the varied nature of the
activity, to understand the environments in which entrepreneurs have thrived,
and, perhaps most importantly, to see patterns and understand the evolution of
innovation and entrepreneurship through the years.
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the world's leading foundation in
increasing understanding of and encouraging entrepreneurship, has directed
significant resources in recent years toward the study of entrepreneurship among
academics, with a particular focus on economics and history. Recognizing that
entrepreneurship has long been absent from both history and economics
textbooks, we initially sought to create a place for a new discipline among
academics. The work we have seen in recent years has gone far beyond our early
goals. Interest in the study of entrepreneurship has flourished throughout the
academic community, and the wealth of information gleaned has both taught us
a great deal and inspired us to learn more. At the Kauffman Foundation, we
believe that if the public is to understand the importance of entrepreneurship to
economic growth today, people will need to learn more about the role
entrepreneurship played in economic growth throughout history.
This volume, in particular, breaks new ground as the first book to trace the
history of entrepreneurship throughout the world since antiquity. Spanning the
ages and covering the globe, this volume takes us from Mesopotamia and Neo-
Babylon to the present. It offers insights from the Middle East, Asia, Europe,
and the United States. The work presented in this volume testifies not only to the
prevalence of entrepreneurial activity throughout history, but also to the changes
in this activity over time and to its role in economic change and growth more
generally.
While the entrepreneurial activity described during each historical period
varies greatly, commonalities and themes emerge. At a detailed level, this work
gives us great insight into the variables that affect entrepreneurship. We see the
varied impact of culture and religion on this important phenomenon, in some
cases inspiring individuals to pursue entrepreneurial dreams and in others
making these dreams nearly impossible. We gain a greater understanding of the
institutions that drive entrepreneurship, from contract law to the patent system.
We understand the tension between productive entrepreneurship that enhances
the growth of the economy and unproductive entrepreneurial activity that
exploits opportunities for personal gain. And, finally, we see the distinction
between the replicative entrepreneurs who simply create more new businesses
like those they see around them and the truly innovative entrepreneurs who
create new products and services and change the very nature of the market. It is
this understanding that allows for the public policy lessons we draw from
history. We come to learn how to promote innovative, productive
entrepreneurship today by discovering the catalysts for and the impediments to
entrepreneurial activity in the past.
On a broad scale, these accounts go even further: they offer us a window into
the seemingly innate impulse for innovation and entrepreneurship that cuts
across cultures and time periods. The diversity of the accounts is illuminating,
but it is the commonalities that ultimately offer us a means of understanding
human nature and the entrepreneurial impulse. We see here that people have
been inspired to create, to innovate, and to market their productive abilities since
the early years of recorded history. And we understand that it is this drive that
has allowed our society to reach its current level of sophistication and
complexity.
This comprehensive consideration of entrepreneurial activity throughout
recorded history strikes out in new directions and encourages us to move further
down this path. Each of these chapters, in fact, is an entrée into a much deeper,
more complex story of entrepreneurs in a particular time and place. Learning
more about each of these unique periods will give us a better understanding of
the drivers of entrepreneurship, the barriers that impede it, the impact it creates,
and, ultimately, human nature.
This volume also serves as an outstanding second contribution to the new
Kauffman Foundation Series on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. A
