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I'm adding "The Control Revolution" to my reading list thanks to this post. I recently finished "The Company: A short History of a Revolutionary Idea" [0] and

I'm adding "The Control Revolution" to my reading list thanks to this post. I recently finished "The Company: A short History of a Revolutionary Idea" [0] and it painted a picture where historic development in economic activity is enabled by increasingly sophisticated contract technology. The more explicitly people were able to specify expectations around business ventures, the successful such ventures could be (and the easier to gather capital). Seems like something you may enjoy! [0] - https://www.amazon.com/Company-History-Revolutionary-Library-Chronicles/dp/0812972872 https://www.amazon.com/Company-History-Revolutionary-Library...

dredmorbius 4y ago
For some further related reading: "The Memorandum as a Management Genre" by JoAnne Yates <http://www.ismlab.usf.edu/dcom/Ch6_YatesMemoMgtCommQtly1989.pdf http://www.ismlab.usf.edu/dcom/Ch6_YatesMemoMgtCommQtly1989....> (PDF) Organizing America by Charles Perrow is Yet Another Book Exploring the Origins of The Corporation: <https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9781400825080/organizing-america https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9781400825080/organi...> <https://archive.org/details/organizingameric0000perr https://archive.org/details/organizingameric0000perr> The New Books Network is a great resource generally for academic books and author interviews. Search on "history of corporation" yields: <https://newbooksnetwork.com/search?+q=history+of+corporation https://newbooksnetwork.com/search?+q=history+of+corporation>. And I see a number of future timesinks, starting with Counter Cola: <https://newbooksnetwork.com/counter-cola https://newbooksnetwork.com/counter-cola> David Hounshell's Science and Corporate Strategy is one of several books about major industrial R&D labs. His covers Du Pont. <https://archive.org/details/sciencecorporate0008houn https://archive.org/details/sciencecorporate0008houn> AT&T's Bell Labs is another notable topic (Jon Gertner, The Idea Factory, though I've not read it). I believe there are likely books on Xerox, Kodak, and IBM. Rand Corporation hosts its own very extensive publications library: <https://www.rand.org/pubs.html https://www.rand.org/pubs.html> I'll add Mickelthwaite's book to my own rather imposing pile.

dredmorbius 4y ago

For some further related reading: "The Memorandum as a Management Genre" by JoAnne Yates <http://www.ismlab.usf.edu/dcom/Ch6_YatesMemoMgtCommQtly1989.pdf http://www.ismlab.usf.edu/dcom/Ch6_YatesMemoMgtCommQtly1989....> (PDF) Organizing America by Charles Perrow is Yet Another Book Exploring the Origins of The Corporation: <https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9781400825080/organizing-america https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9781400825080/organi...> <https://archive.org/details/organizingameric0000perr https://archive.org/details/organizingameric0000perr> The New Books Network is a great resource generally for academic books and author interviews. Search on "history of corporation" yields: <https://newbooksnetwork.com/search?+q=history+of+corporation https://newbooksnetwork.com/search?+q=history+of+corporation>. And I see a number of future timesinks, starting with Counter Cola: <https://newbooksnetwork.com/counter-cola https://newbooksnetwork.com/counter-cola> David Hounshell's Science and Corporate Strategy is one of several books about major industrial R&D labs. His covers Du Pont. <https://archive.org/details/sciencecorporate0008houn https://archive.org/details/sciencecorporate0008houn> AT&T's Bell Labs is another notable topic (Jon Gertner, The Idea Factory, though I've not read it). I believe there are likely books on Xerox, Kodak, and IBM. Rand Corporation hosts its own very extensive publications library: <https://www.rand.org/pubs.html https://www.rand.org/pubs.html> I'll add Mickelthwaite's book to my own rather imposing pile.