num_pages: 314
description: "Commerce meets conquest in this swashbuckling story of the six merchant-adventurers who built the modern world, as told by Steven Bown , Canada's Simon Winchester." - Globe and Mail Through the Age of Heroic Commerce, from the 17th to the 19th centuries, a rogue's gallery of larger-than-life merchant kings ruled vast tracts of the globe and expanded their far-flung monopolies to generate revenue for their shareholders, feather their own nests and satisfy their vanity and curiosity. Their exploits changed the world during an age of unfettered globalization, mirroring a world we know today. Merchant Kings looks at each ruling monopoly through its greatest merchant king and considers their stories together for the first time.
language: English
title: Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600 - 1900
publisher: Douglas & McIntyre