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The Origins of Business, Money, and Markets Page xvi (16 of 380)
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xvi P R E FAC E
infl cance fi rst emerged, rather than providing a uential changes of signifi
comprehensive enumeration of businesses and their practices. Th e result is
selective in its description of businesses and of the places where business
was practiced.1 Because knowledge about antiquity is oft en uncertain, those
who aim to advance the state of scholarship oft en disagree about what
things mean. As scholars they provide lengthy discussions and citations to
justify their views. But since this is simply a report on what the scholars
have found, rather than an eff ort to advance their learning, and since I
doubt that most readers would fi nd such discussions of value, I have lim-
ited references to the principal sources for each chapter and the particular
sources I used for quotations and less obvious information.
I have been the happy benefi ciary of enormous help from many peo-
ple. Intellectually, I have formed my concepts of how history works from,
among others, the great twentieth-century scholars Fernand Braudel, Al-
fred D. Chandler, Sir John Hicks, William H. McNeill, Douglass C. North,
and Oliver Williamson.2 I also owe a debt to the late Harvard Law School
professor of legal history Samuel Th orne, whose careful standards of
scholarship I have always tried to follow.
I began this study while operating a business. I could proceed only
because of the hard and capable work of its managers, including Arthur
Pirrone, Vincent Valicenti, the late Milton Linker, and Wilmer Pastoriza;
and my ability to trust honorable business partners like Frank Gilfedder of
Stiefel Laboratories, the late Richard Ottaviano of Genesis Management,
Bill Weiss and Arturo Peralta-Ramos of Medtech Laboratories (now Pres-
tige Brands Inc.), and Menelaos Kostarelos of the international cosmetics
company Farmeco.
Quite a number of friends, colleagues, and teachers have most help-
fully read and commented on draft s and chapters of this work. First and
foremost has been my mentor, William H. McNeill, the great historian
who read, reread, and read again these chapters. I cannot say enough for
his guidance and friendship. And if I have misused the word feudal , it is
not his fault. Another great historian and teacher who freely gave me his
time and thought was the late Alfred Chandler, the inventor of modern
business history. His early counsel and enthusiasm kept me going through
times of grave doubt. My friend Cliff ord Brown, a distinguished political
scientist with a particular love for Th ucydides, provided many helpful
comments, as did the learned Fred Terna and marketing professor Sashi
Gadjil. I am also extremely grateful for the encouragement and friendship
of professors Douglass North, the late Peter Drucker, and Karl Moore.
