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    • News  (10)
    • Research  (36)
  • Faculty Publications  (33)

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  • All HBS Web  (79)
    • News  (10)
    • Research  (36)
  • Faculty Publications  (33)
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  • 26 Sep 2017
  • Working Paper Summaries

Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

Keywords: by Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona
  • 29 Nov 2017
  • Research & Ideas

How to Succeed in Business (According to a 15th Century Trade Merchant)

issue of responsibility to the community and who you are as a person.” Written in 1458 in Italy by trade merchant Benedetto Cotrugli, The Book of the Art of Trade recently received its first English... View Details
Keywords: by Julia Hanna
  • Research Summary

The Origins, Current State, and Future of Capitalism

By: Sophus A. Reinert
Starting with the dawn of market capitalism in Renaissance Italy, Professor Reinert works at the intersection of economic ideas, policies, and practices in history, particularly as seen through the lens of national strategies in international competition. He seeks to... View Details
  • 07 Nov 2011
  • Research & Ideas

The Forgotten Book that Helped Shape the Modern Economy

book, Translating Empire: Emulation and the Origins of Political Economy, Harvard Business School historian Sophus A. Reinert unearths John... View Details
Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne
  • Book Review

In margine a un bilancio sui lumi europei." A review of The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples, 1680–1760, by John Robertson

By: Sophus A. Reinert
Keywords: Society; Information; History; Scotland; Italy
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Reinert, Sophus A. In margine a un bilancio sui lumi europei." A review of The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples, 1680–1760, by John Robertson." Rivista storica italiana 118 (2006): 975–986.
  • 2018
  • Introduction

Introduction: History and Political Economy

By: Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona
This volume offers a snapshot of the resurgent historiography of political economy in the wake of the ongoing global financial crisis, and suggests fruitful new agendas for research on the political-economic nexus as it has developed in the Western world since the end... View Details
Keywords: Economics; Government and Politics; History
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Reinert, Sophus A., and Robert Fredona. "Introduction: History and Political Economy." Introduction to New Perspectives on the History of Political Economy, edited by Robert Fredona and Sophus A. Reinert, 11–32. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
  • 2019
  • Chapter

Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

By: Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona
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... View Details
Keywords: Economic Systems; History; Business History
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Reinert, Sophus A., and Robert Fredona. "Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism." Chap. 11 in The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business, edited by Teresa da Silva Lopes, Christina Lubinski, and Heidi J.S. Tworek. New York: Routledge, 2019.
  • 2017
  • Working Paper

Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism

By: Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona
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... View Details
Keywords: Economic Systems; History; Business History
Citation
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Reinert, Sophus A., and Robert Fredona. "Merchants and the Origins of Capitalism." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 18-021, September 2017. (Forthcoming in Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business. Edited by Teresa da Silva Lopes, Christina Lubinski, Heidi Tworek (2018).)
  • 10 Oct 2017
  • First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, October 10, 2017

forthcoming New York: Palgrave Macmillan New Perspectives on the History of Political Economy By: Fredona, Robert, and Sophus A. Reinert, eds. Abstract—This volume offers a... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
  • Spring 2020
  • Article

Italy and the Origins of Capitalism

By: Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona
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Reinert, Sophus A., and Robert Fredona. "Italy and the Origins of Capitalism." Business History Review 94 (Spring 2020): 5–38.
  • 2022
  • Article

Before Plagiarism: Lawyers and Copynorms in Europe, 1300–1600

By: Robert Fredona and Sophus A. Reinert
This essay uses the concept of 'copynorms', social norms about copying expressive works that can be distinct from legal norms about the same, in order to understand the meaning of intellectual property among Roman law and canon law jurists from the fourteenth through... View Details
Keywords: Copyright; History; Europe
Citation
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Fredona, Robert, and Sophus A. Reinert. "Before Plagiarism: Lawyers and Copynorms in Europe, 1300–1600." Rivista storica italiana 134, no. 3 (2022): 714–765.
  • Spring 2020
  • Article

Political Economy and the Medici

By: Sophus A. Reinert and Robert Fredona
Citation
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Reinert, Sophus A., and Robert Fredona. "Political Economy and the Medici." Business History Review 94 (Spring 2020): 125–177.
  • 13 Feb 2018
  • First Look

New Research and Ideas, February 13, 2018

Jealousy of Trade and the History of Political Thought By: Kapossy, Béla, Isaac Nakhimovsky, Sophus A. Reinert, and Richard Whatmore, eds.... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
  • April 2015 (Revised October 2019)
  • Case

The Great Divergence: Europe and Modern Economic Growth

By: Sophus A. Reinert
The continent of Europe seemed in the spring of 2015 to be in a weaker position relative to other world regions than it had in centuries. Though comparatively small, it had long played a disproportionate role in world history, to the extent that the modern world system... View Details
Keywords: The Great Divergence; Modern Economic Growth; Empire; Disruption; Economic Growth; Values and Beliefs; History; Globalization; Europe
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Reinert, Sophus A. "The Great Divergence: Europe and Modern Economic Growth." Harvard Business School Case 715-039, April 2015. (Revised October 2019.)
  • 2016
  • Book

Antonio Serra and the Economics of Good Government

By: Rosario Patalano and Sophus A. Reinert
Little is known of Antonio Serra except that he wrote his extraordinary 1613 Short Treatise on the Causes That Make Kingdoms Abound in Gold and Silver even in the Absence of Mines in a Neapolitan jail and that he died there soon afterwards. However, the... View Details
Keywords: History; Books; Government and Politics; Economics
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Patalano, Rosario and Sophus A. Reinert, eds. Antonio Serra and the Economics of Good Government. Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
  • 12 Jun 2018
  • First Look

New Research and Ideas, June 12, 2018

forthcoming Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press The Academy of Fisticuffs: Political Economy and Commercial Society in Enlightenment Italy By: Reinert, Sophus A.... View Details
Keywords: Dina Gerdeman
  • 2016
  • Working Paper

Mapping the Economic Grand Tour: Travel and International Emulation in Enlightenment Europe

By: Sophus A. Reinert
As the itinerant wizard (technically one of the Maiar, if not the Istari) Gandalf wrote to the then domestically-inclined hobbit Frodo Baggins in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, “Not all those who wander are lost.” Indeed, as the recent brouhaha over the... View Details
Keywords: Behavior; Globalization
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Reinert, Sophus A. "Mapping the Economic Grand Tour: Travel and International Emulation in Enlightenment Europe." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 17-005, July 2016.
  • 2021
  • Working Paper

Caccia Selvaggia: Myth, Rites, and the Right in Carlo Ginzburg's Storia notturna

By: Robert Fredona and Sophus A. Reinert
Carlo Ginzburg (b. 1939) is widely considered one of Europe’s leading historians. His masterpiece Storia notturna (Turin: Einaudi, 1989), widely praised for its extraordinary erudition and creativity, is now over three decades old but it continues to inspire... View Details
Keywords: Mythology; Culture; Political Doctrine; History; Government and Politics; Society
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Fredona, Robert, and Sophus A. Reinert. "Caccia Selvaggia: Myth, Rites, and the Right in Carlo Ginzburg's Storia notturna." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 22-041, December 2021.
  • 26 Sep 2017
  • First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, September 26, 2017

and a fast-growing market. There was a growing need to incorporate local relevance into global products and to respond to local competitors. Download working paper:... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
  • September 2024 (Revised March 2025)
  • Case

Burn the Gondolas? Venice, the Ghetto, and the Seasons of Capitalism

By: Sophus A. Reinert, Charlotte Robertson and Robert Fredona
This case uses the history of Venice—from the driving of the first pylons in the lagoon to the abdication of the city’s last doge, across the ages of Marco Polo and Vivaldi—to explore the invention and global diffusion of capitalism, as well as the cyclical rise and... View Details
Keywords: Transformation; History; Power and Influence; Prejudice and Bias; Italy
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Reinert, Sophus A., Charlotte Robertson, and Robert Fredona. "Burn the Gondolas? Venice, the Ghetto, and the Seasons of Capitalism." Harvard Business School Case 725-006, September 2024. (Revised March 2025.)
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