The Company
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (Modern Library, 2005)
Summary: Illuminating and ambitious. A unified narrative from the ancient traders and British and Dutch East India Companies to modern Silicon Valley venture capital and multinational corporations. Skillful interweaving of historical threads through politico-economic evolutions and revolutions.
Key Quote: "Since the mid-nineteenth century, there has been a battle between two different conceptions of the company: the stakeholder ideal that holds that companies are responsible to a wide range of social groups and the shareholder ideal that holds that they are primarily responsible to their shareholders." - p. 187
Bottom Line: Read this book if you want to put contemporary Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) mandates in a larger historical context.
