------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------Published by EH.NET (May 2010)David S. Landes, Joel Mokyr and William J. Baumol , editors, _The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times_. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. xv + 566 pp. $49.50 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-0-691-14370-5.Reviewed for EH.NET by Reuven Brenner, Desautels School of Management, McGill University.Carl Schramm, who wrote the Foreword to this book, and who, through the Kauffman Foundation, paid for it, states clearly that the book is about "entrepreneurship as people -- entrepreneurs in particular -- understand the term: Someone who creates a _business_ that, in some respects, differs from existing ones.Yet, just two pages later, William Baumol writes in his Preface that the book is about both "redistributive" and "productive" entrepreneurship, the former covering warfare, crime, bribes, lobbying -- any innovative ideas. Since this covers just about everything from Napoleon and his Code to Robin Hood, and from Muhammad, the merchant and one of the very few of Heavens' intermediaries on this Earth to 35,000 registered lobbyists in Washington -- it is little wonder that most of the 18 chapters, written by 18 different academics are all over the map, and provide little illumination on Schramm's targeted subject matter. If one just went from the Foreword and Preface straight to the Index of the book, one could immediately realize that. "Finance, credit, debt" appear in less than 40 pages of the 541 pages of text, and the terms "equity" and "partner(ship))" do not even appear in the Index, though the few relevant chapters in the book highlight the importance of both in financing entrepreneurial ventures across some countries and time. How can one write anything about entrepreneurs without starting the examination with the ways they were financed? Where was the risk capital coming from and in what shapes and forms? And if there was no risk capital -- then why not? Even if just parts of the book dealt with "productive entrepreneurs," these should have been the questions framing the discussion in the 18 chapters.Susan Wolcott's chapter, "An Examination of the Supply of Financial Credit to Entrepreneurs in Colonial India," is among the exceptions that actually does that and sheds light on the unusual features of India's credit markets. The chapter describes the options entrepreneurs faced if they wanted their businesses to grow; how the lack of openness of its credit markets forced entrepreneurs to rely on family savings; how the caste system and the English come into the financial landscape. This chapter provides insights into the financial difficulties of launching and growing a business when capital markets are in their infancy, and also a brief glimpse into how lack of tolerance hinders entrepreneurship.The only other chapters that cover these topics are Oscar Gelderblom's and Timur Kuran's. The first is about "The Golden Age of the Dutch Republic," which shows in detail how equity combined with limited liability financed the Dutch entrepreneurs, though even he gets distracted at first by categorizing things and then stating that Amsterdam's 2,600 shopkeepers (butchers, bakers, cobblers etc.) were the city's entrepreneurs. Luckily, after only three