In a pre-industrial economy dominated by small family firms, economic growth could not have occurred without the skill, persistence, and initiative of individual businessmen like Sir Dudley North. North was not only a celebrated merchant and economist, but an important and controversial servant of Charles II and James II. Richard Grassby exploits the extraordinary wealth of documentation available to establish how North made a fortune in the Levant commodity trade and through usury. He explores his character, beliefs, and intentions, and the diverse technical and personal reasons for his success. As the younger son of a peer, his domestic life and his relationships with his family and the world of business demonstrate both the mobility of English society and the close integration of town and country. His works, which are here published in full for the first time, reveal the breadth of his intellectual interests.
Although a man of exceptional personality, North confronted the same obstacles and opportunities as other merchants of his day, and this study of his life offers us unique and valuable insights into the seventeenth-century business world.
"Grassby has produced an excellent and highly readable biography." - The Economic History Review
"This is business biography at its best, and anyone interested in the minutuae of early modern business practice cannot afford to ignore it." - Business History
"meticulously researched biography" - American Historical Review
"a learned, important ... work ... It draws upon prodigious research, citing manuscripts from over sixty archives and concludes with a valuable edition of North's economic writings and of the passages omitted from the printed version of the Life of Sir Dudley North." - Mark S.R. Jenner, University of York, Urban History, Vol. 23, Pt 2 - Aug 96
"Grassby...writes with impressive conciseness and authority... Grassby's success in re-creating from contemporary ledgers, journals and correspondenceboth North's personality and his milieu must be pronounced a remarkable achievement" - English Historical Review
