Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Working Knowledge
Business Research for Business Leaders
  • Browse All Articles
  • Popular Articles
  • Cold Call Podcasts
  • About Us
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Entrepreneurship
  • All Topics...
  • Topics
    • COVID-19
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Finance
    • Gender
    • Globalization
    • Leadership
    • Management
    • Negotiation
    • Social Enterprise
    • Strategy
  • Sections
    • Book
    • Cold Call Podcast
    • HBS Case
    • In Practice
    • Lessons from the Classroom
    • Op-Ed
    • Research & Ideas
    • Research Event
    • Sharpening Your Skills
    • What Do You Think?
    • Working Paper Summaries
  • Browse All
    • COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      COVID-19 Business Impact Center
      Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism
      26 Sep 2017Working Paper Summaries

      Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

      by Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona
      This chapter shows how a new kind of predominantly Italian merchants emerged as global figures during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Then as now, they pooled capital and shared risk to enrich themselves and their polities, utilized the infrastructure and markets that they helped make, and created new legal and financial instruments to facilitate their ventures.
      LinkedIn
      Email

      Author Abstract

      N.S.B. Gras, the father of Business History in the United States, argued that the era of mercantile capitalism was defined by the figure of the “sedentary merchant,” who managed his business from home, using correspondence and intermediaries, in contrast to the earlier “traveling merchant,” who accompanied his own goods to trade fairs. Taking this concept as its point of departure, this essay focuses on the predominantly Italian merchants who controlled the long-distance East-West trade of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Until the opening of the Atlantic trade, the Mediterranean was Europe’s most important commercial zone, its trade enriched European civilization, and its merchants developed the most important premodern mercantile innovations, from maritime insurance contracts and partnership agreements to the bill of exchange and double-entry bookkeeping. Emerging from literate and numerate cultures, these merchants left behind an abundance of records that allow us to understand how their companies, especially the largest of them, were organized and managed. These techniques can also be put in the context of premodern attitudes toward commerce and the era’s commercial-political relations. The Commercial Revolution anticipated the Industrial Revolution by over half a millennium and laid the groundwork for today’s world of global business.

      Paper Information

      • Full Working Paper Text
      • Working Paper Publication Date: September 2017
      • HBS Working Paper Number: HBS Working Paper #18-021
      • Faculty Unit(s): Business, Government and International Economy
        Trending
          • 24 Feb 2021
          • Lessons from the Classroom

          What History's Biggest Wars Teach Us About Leading in Peace

          • 25 Feb 2019
          • Research & Ideas

          How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence

          • 17 May 2017
          • Research & Ideas

          Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews

          • 13 Jul 2020
          • Research & Ideas

          Merck CEO Ken Frazier Discusses a COVID Cure, Racism, and Why Leaders Need to Walk the Talk

          • 09 Feb 2021
          • Cold Call Podcast

          Developing Resilience on the Path to Becoming a CEO

      Sophus A. Reinert
      Sophus A. Reinert
      Professor of Business Administration
      Contact
      Send an email
      → More Articles
      Find Related Articles
      • Economic Systems
      • Business History
      • History
      • United States

      Sign up for our weekly newsletter

      Interested in improving your business? Learn about fresh research and ideas from Harvard Business School faculty.
      ǁ
      Campus Map
      Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
      Baker Library | Bloomberg Center
      Soldiers Field
      Boston, MA 02163
      Email: Editor-in-Chief
      →Map & Directions
      →More Contact Information
      • Make a Gift
      • Site Map
      • Jobs
      • Harvard University
      • Trademarks
      • Policies
      • Digital Accessibility
      Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College