"Remarkable . . . True believers in the free market faith and heretics alike will profit from knowing this history."
-San Francisco Chronicle

"A swashbuckling journey through the past and into the future of the modern company."
-Los Angeles Times

The authors take up [the corporation's] tale with brio and wit . . . . Worthwhile for almost anyone with an interest in the subject."
-The Wall Street Journal

"The limited-liability joint-stock company is a very marvel of the modern world economy, a historical force to rival religions, monarchies, and even states. The Company tells the colorful story of its birth and maturation--and its pervasive social and cultural consequences--with rare concision and flair."
--David M. Kennedy, author of Freedom from Fear and professor of history at Stanford University

"A fascinating and delightful investigation both of how the guilds and 'corporate persons' of the Middle Ages turned into the institution from which so many people today directly and indirectly earn their daily bread and of the issues facing the company in the twenty-first century."
--Daniel Yergin, author of The Prize and coauthor of The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy