This anthology delivers 17 authoritative essays by accomplished scholars, surveying the sweep of history as seen from the vantage point of trade and commerce. The presentations on ten cultures from 20 different researchers are necessarily varied in perspective. Uniting them are their answers to the question, “What is entrepreneurship?” In the Preface by William J. Baumol, three hypotheses are presented. First, entrepreneurs find practical application for new inventions. However, in addition to those obviously creative actions, corrosive enterprises enrich their operatives without apparent net benefit to others. That, too, is enterprise because (third) “the direction taken by entrepreneurial activity depends heavily, at any particular time and in any particular society, on the prevailing institutional arrangements and the relative payoffs they offer...” Of course, other definitions have been offered. Peter Schumpeter, Israel Kirzner, Fran Knight, and even John Keynes, are referenced across the essays. But these three hypotheses frame those other views.
