(I'm a Journeyman Librarian)
May 25, 2009 5:11 PM Subscribe
If you were building a library collection around the history of business—guilds, apprenticeships, royal charter companies, corporations, and so on—what books would you select?
Alfred Chandler's The Visible Hand and Scale & Scope, among his other works, are classics of business history.
posted by googly at 8:08 PM on May 25, 2009
posted by googly at 8:08 PM on May 25, 2009
Pomeranz and Topik's The World That Trade Created and The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia
For 19th and 20th century, Richard Samuels' Rich State, Strong Army.
Don't forget about Japan and the rest of Asia.
posted by vincele at 8:10 PM on May 25, 2009
For 19th and 20th century, Richard Samuels' Rich State, Strong Army.
Don't forget about Japan and the rest of Asia.
posted by vincele at 8:10 PM on May 25, 2009
Finding a book about the Middle Ages that fits your needs will be hard. Believe me, I've looked -- I've looked very hard. Most stuff is either overlight light (and therefore largely incorrect), or obscenely scholarly and therefore dull, dull, dull.
I think about the best you can hope for is Christopher Dyer's Making a Living in the Middle Ages. It's a great book, but it only covers Britain, and it's not the most exciting read in the world.
Two other non-medieval recommendations:
The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge.
The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson. Haven't read it, but heard good things...Ferguson also has a lot of older business/economic history books you might want to look into.
posted by hiteleven at 9:07 PM on May 25, 2009
I think about the best you can hope for is Christopher Dyer's Making a Living in the Middle Ages. It's a great book, but it only covers Britain, and it's not the most exciting read in the world.
Two other non-medieval recommendations:
The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge.
The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson. Haven't read it, but heard good things...Ferguson also has a lot of older business/economic history books you might want to look into.
posted by hiteleven at 9:07 PM on May 25, 2009
The conventional wisdom about Europe is that it reigned(s) supreme as the innovator of trade and financial instruments as long as history has been a professional discipline. We're beginning to realize that Europeans were latecomers to the trade and finance by looking at new evidence and by looking at old evidence in new ways. Why and when Europe began to surpass the Chinese, Arabs and Southeast Asians are questions answered in many different ways, but the consensus coming out of this new line of research is that European supremacy in trade is a recent (post-1600) phenomenon.
So if you read Ferguson, by all means read an antidote to his Eurocentrism. The World That Trade Created, which I suggested above, starts around the 13th century and moves forward through the 20th. Another good short one is The Making of the Modern World by John Marks.
Specialized monographs for China and Japan respectively are: Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence and David Howell's Capitalism from Within. Pomeranz describes why China fell behind Europe. Howell examines how capitalism developed independently of Europe in the very advanced economy of Tokugawa-era Japan.
A thick yet balanced and lively textbook of modern World History is Tignor et al.'s Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. Especially chapters 1-5 show how Europe fits into the larger "global" story.
None of these books ignore Europe or disputes its eventual rise to power. You'll get Europe in measured doses, and the bibliographies direct you to classics in European history.
Happy reading!
posted by vincele at 10:20 PM on May 25, 2009 [1 favorite]
So if you read Ferguson, by all means read an antidote to his Eurocentrism. The World That Trade Created, which I suggested above, starts around the 13th century and moves forward through the 20th. Another good short one is The Making of the Modern World by John Marks.
Specialized monographs for China and Japan respectively are: Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence and David Howell's Capitalism from Within. Pomeranz describes why China fell behind Europe. Howell examines how capitalism developed independently of Europe in the very advanced economy of Tokugawa-era Japan.
A thick yet balanced and lively textbook of modern World History is Tignor et al.'s Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. Especially chapters 1-5 show how Europe fits into the larger "global" story.
None of these books ignore Europe or disputes its eventual rise to power. You'll get Europe in measured doses, and the bibliographies direct you to classics in European history.
Happy reading!
posted by vincele at 10:20 PM on May 25, 2009 [1 favorite]
If you include historical fiction, Neal Stephenson spends a good amount of time covering these topics in his Baroque Cycle.
posted by zippy at 10:39 PM on May 25, 2009
posted by zippy at 10:39 PM on May 25, 2009
Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman. It was, hands down, the most in demand book during my time at the Harvard Business School's Baker Library. It will also cost you a minimum of 500 dollars.
You can also check out said library's Core Collection (PDF here). This is from 2007 and should hopefully cover what the library considers the Core of business literature. Of course, this location was also used as a store for newer books when the library was being renovated, so don't take the titles as gospel, just a good launching off point.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:15 AM on May 26, 2009
You can also check out said library's Core Collection (PDF here). This is from 2007 and should hopefully cover what the library considers the Core of business literature. Of course, this location was also used as a store for newer books when the library was being renovated, so don't take the titles as gospel, just a good launching off point.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:15 AM on May 26, 2009
The conventional wisdom about Europe is that it reigned(s) supreme as the innovator of trade and financial instruments as long as history has been a professional discipline. We're beginning to realize that Europeans were latecomers to the trade and finance by looking at new evidence and by looking at old evidence in new ways. Why and when Europe began to surpass the Chinese, Arabs and Southeast Asians are questions answered in many different ways, but the consensus coming out of this new line of research is that European supremacy in trade is a recent (post-1600) phenomenon.
While of course you should suggest books that hover around your field of interest, I think it's a bit much to tell the OP to ignore all books that focus specifically on Europe and America, particularly because he/she would be cutting out some of the true classic works in the field.
Think of this way. Say the OP was looking to build a library of classic literature. Would you come on here and say "Dickens/Shakespeare/Beckett are too Euro-centric, try reading [obscure author x from obscure country y]?" That would obviously be doing a disservice to the poster. In this case, the classic literature may indeed by Euro-centric (perhaps not as much anymore), but that doesn't mean you should steer him/her away from it entirely.
posted by hiteleven at 5:47 AM on May 26, 2009
While of course you should suggest books that hover around your field of interest, I think it's a bit much to tell the OP to ignore all books that focus specifically on Europe and America, particularly because he/she would be cutting out some of the true classic works in the field.
Think of this way. Say the OP was looking to build a library of classic literature. Would you come on here and say "Dickens/Shakespeare/Beckett are too Euro-centric, try reading [obscure author x from obscure country y]?" That would obviously be doing a disservice to the poster. In this case, the classic literature may indeed by Euro-centric (perhaps not as much anymore), but that doesn't mean you should steer him/her away from it entirely.
posted by hiteleven at 5:47 AM on May 26, 2009
The Medieval Super-Companies: A Study of the Peruzzi Company of Florence
A little lighter:
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World
Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence
Speaking of banking innovations, Giuseppe Felloni in Genoa has been researching the archives of the Banco di San Giorgio. Check out this article in the Financial Times.
the consensus coming out of this new line of research is that European supremacy in trade is a recent (post-1600) phenomenon.
I'd like to hear more about this, if you have some more direction. Names, titles, jawdroppers
posted by IndigoJones at 7:17 AM on May 26, 2009
A little lighter:
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World
Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence
Speaking of banking innovations, Giuseppe Felloni in Genoa has been researching the archives of the Banco di San Giorgio. Check out this article in the Financial Times.
the consensus coming out of this new line of research is that European supremacy in trade is a recent (post-1600) phenomenon.
I'd like to hear more about this, if you have some more direction. Names, titles, jawdroppers
posted by IndigoJones at 7:17 AM on May 26, 2009
Response by poster: Thanks for the answers! Usually, I can read reviews and explore Amazon linkages to discover new books about a topic, but this is a field that seems rife with low-quality hack writing, unfortunately. It was difficult for me to identify viable books. It doesn't help that my own fields are in the humanities.
posted by sonic meat machine at 10:17 AM on May 26, 2009
posted by sonic meat machine at 10:17 AM on May 26, 2009
OP: I also recommend Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Read that with Robert Bellah's Tokugawa Religion, which despite the title applies Weber's ideas to Japan.
hiteleven: Of course any good library will have the classics up through the latest research in a field. You paraphrase my post in a way that distorts my meaning.
I suggested that if he read Ferguson, he should read an antidote to his Eurocentrism. Ferguson is a controversial figure and that fact should be taken into account when selecting books to complement his works. Does that mean a library should omit Ferguson's work? Of course not.
But there's more to European and North American history than the work of Niall Ferguson. He's not a classic. Maybe he will be someday, who knows? Either you misunderstood me or agree with me.
None of my recommendations is "[obscure author x from obscure country y]." If you are not familiar with the country of China or the author Kenneth Pomeranz and what both mean for the study of Europe, well, I'm not sure what to say to that.
posted by vincele at 3:53 PM on May 26, 2009
Thank you Vincele!
posted by IndigoJones at 1:45 PM on May 29, 2009
posted by IndigoJones at 1:45 PM on May 29, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by zamboni at 6:02 PM on May 25, 2009