To understand business and its political, cultural, and economic context, it helps to view it historically, yet most business histories look no further back than the nineteenth century. The full sweep of business history actually begins much earlier, with the initial cities of Mesopotamia. This book depicts the society of ancient traders and consumers, tracing the roots of modern business and underscoring the relationship between early and modern business practice. This narrative begins before business, which it defines as selling to voluntary buyers at a profit. Before business, it shows, the ... More

To understand business and its political, cultural, and economic context, it helps to view it historically, yet most business histories look no further back than the nineteenth century. The full sweep of business history actually begins much earlier, with the initial cities of Mesopotamia. This book depicts the society of ancient traders and consumers, tracing the roots of modern business and underscoring the relationship between early and modern business practice. This narrative begins before business, which it defines as selling to voluntary buyers at a profit. Before business, it shows, the material conditions and concepts for the pursuit of profit did not exist, even though trade and manufacturing took place. The earliest business, the book suggests, arose with the long-distance trade of early Mesopotamia, and expanded into retail, manufacturing, and finance in these command economies, culminating in the Middle Eastern empires. But it was the largely independent rise of business, money, and markets in classical Greece that produced business much as we know it. Alexander the Great's conquests and the societies that his successors created in their kingdoms brought a version of this system to the old Middle Eastern empires, and beyond. At Rome this entrepreneurial market system gained important new features, including business corporations, public contracting, and even shopping malls. The story concludes with the sharp decline of business after the third century ce.