I am currently working with a colleague on a book about Canadian entrepreneurial history. The book, which should be published later this year, will present 61 short biographies of Canadian entrepreneurs who lived before 1930.
For this reason, I was interested to read Andrew Godley’s review of José L. Garcia-Ruiz and Pier Angelo Toninelli, editors, The Determinants of Entrepreneurship: Leadership, Culture and Institutions. London: Pickering
and Chatto, 2010. x + 236 pp. $99 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-84893-071-1.
I’ve decided that I will have to read this book, even though none of the essays directly relate to Canadian or the other national countries that normally relate to my research. (The geographical focus of the book is on southern Europe). I want to read this collection of essays because I’m interested in the methodological issues it raises, for the essays in it explore the impact of national, ethnic and religious cultural values and education levels on entrepreneurial activity. The essay by James Foreman-Peck and Peng Zhou looks interesting because it explores entrepreneurial culture.
Canada’s population of entrepreneurs has been ethnically and linguistically diverse, so any historian of Canadian entrepreneurship needs to grapple with the international literature on the impact of culture on entrepreneurship.
The author of the review I have cited,Andrew Godley, is Professor of Management and Director of Research at the Henley Centre for Entrepreneurship, Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK. He has authored many studies of historical entrepreneurship, including Jewish Immigrant Entrepreneurship in London and New York: Enterprise and Culture (Palgrave, 2001).
The Past Speaks 