Bradley Bowden - Slavery, Freedom and Business Endeavor: The Reforging of Western Civilization and the Transformation of Everyday Life

Scholarship in business history often produced divergent opinions that seldom engage with each other. Business historians have continued their scholarly endeavors with little obvious concern to the popular discontents around them. This book series will foster debate among business historians, bring together a variety of opinions from around the globe to confront the key issues of our time with the intent of becoming a fulcrum of debate. The series will use a broad understanding of business history so that it brings together work that is currently operating in tandem with each other without ever engaging with each other: work from business and management history, social history, economic history, cultural history, labor history, sociology, and political history whose focus is societal rather than personal or narrowly institutional. The series will focus on the following current debates in the field: the nature of globalization; the nature of capitalism; the nature and effects of western civilization (particularly as relates to industrialization); the mediatisation of business; gender, class and identity; and business and shifts in wealth, power and inequality. Within these topics there is passionate dissension, creating an opportunity engage multiple perspectives.

Editors

Bradley Bowden, Griffith University, Australia

Michael Heller, Brunel University, UK

Associate Editors

Jeffrey Muldoon, Emporia University, USA

Gabrielle Durepos, Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada

Editorial Board

Bernardo Batiz-Lazo, University of Northumbria, UK

Arthur G Bedeian, Louisiana State University, USA

Amanda Budde-Sung, US Air Force Academy, USA

Andrew Cardow, Massey University, New Zealand

Matteo Cristofaro, University of Rome, Italy

Sbastien Damart, Paris Dauphine University, France

Carlos Davila, University of the Andes, Colombia

Nick Dyrenfurth, Curtin Research University, Australia

Anthony M. Gould, University of Laval, Canada

Scott Hargreaves, Institute for Public Affairs, Australia

Albert Mills, Saint Marys University, Canada

Jean Helms Mills, Saint Marys University, Canada

Elly Leung, University of Western Australia, Australia

Jan Logemann, University of Gttingen, Germany

Mairi Maclean, University of Bath, UK

Vadim Marshev, Moscow State University, Russia

Patricia McLaren, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada

Peter Miskell, Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK

Milorad Novicevic, University of Mississippi, USA

Andrew Popp, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Nimruji Prasad, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India

Michael Rowlinson, University of Exeter, UK

Stefan Schwarzkopf, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Philip Scranton, Rutgers University, USA

Grietjie Verhoef, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

James Wilson, University of Glasgow, UK

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/16405

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Bradley Bowdens work, Slavery, Freedom and Business Endeavor: The Reforging of Western Civilization and the Transformation of Everyday life, is a work of erudition, reflecting a lifetime of rigorous learning. Bowden is as masterful in writing about ancient Greece and Rome as he is about modern history ; his ability to apply modern management and economics theory to explain how modern business emerged is an exemplar for scholars. As befitting a two-time winner of the Academy of Managements John F. Mee award for Outstanding Contribution to Management History, Bowden has produced a brilliant thought-provoking work.

For Bowdens epistemological supporters, this book will inspire, edify and educate. For his opponents, it will provoke, prod, and even potentially infuriate. Whether friend or foe, the reader will find this an important book, especially during these trying times, where we find ourselves questioning previously settled matters. How this orthodoxy came into being is of importance to any serious student of business. For those questioning current orthodoxieswhich increasingly portray both western civilization and capitalism in a negative lightthere will be an appreciation of Bowdens ability to muster primary and secondary source material in support of his arguments. Whatever ones perspective, this is a substantial work.

Before I continue, I must confess to the reader that Bowden serves with me as co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Management History ; we co-edited (with Anthony Gould and Adela McMurray) The Palgrave Handbook of Management History; we are also members of the Tacitus Forum. More than that, Bowden has been a friend, mentor, and a significant intellectual influence on my development as a scholar. I (like others) have found him uncommonly generous with his time and energy. His willingness (whether you agree with him or not) to take unpopular views that go against the norm should be an example for any scholar. As such, he has been a constant champion of the intellectual legacy of western civilization: freedom, reason and open inquiry. Once these were considered unchallenged ideals. Now, they are increasingly under fire.