Robert Fredona
Biographic Data
| ID | 970629 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Fredona |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Fredona |
| SIGNATURE | FREDONA R |
| AFFILIATIONS | The York Management School University of York |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 59 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Science and Political Economy in Enlightenment Milan, 1760–1805
The Officer and the People: Accountability and Authority in Pre-Modern Europe
The Officer and the People: Accountability and Authority in Pre-Modern Europe. María Ángeles Martín Romera and Hannes Ziegler, eds. Studies of the German Historical Institute London. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 380 pp. $105. - Volume 78 Issue 3
Consensus, Authority, and Truth in the Early Sixteenth-Century Ius Commune
Medieval rules that bound practicing lawyers and judges to follow the consensus of jurists were systematized in the Renaissance. A high point in the theorization of communis opinio doctorum came in the early sixteenth century. This essay contextualizes this moment by showing its relationship with late-medieval textual and pedagogical practices, new scholarly technologies in the age of print, and, most importantly, law’s essential function as a ge…
In the Zone: On Quinn Slobodian’s Crack-Up Capitalism and the Spaces of Political Economy
Quinn Slobodian has established himself as a leading historian of neoliberalism. Crack-Up Capitalism continues where his Globalists left off, but shifts focus from visions of global ordering to the fragmentation of the world into special economic zones (SEZs). In Slobodian’s provocative analysis, SEZs become a late neoliberal solution to the entrenched problem of democracy at the nation-state level. We follow Slobodian into the zone, thinking wit…
Forms of Capitalism
Reconsidering the Commercial Revolution
retirement and fellow of All Souls College, arrived on the academic scene with a splash in the early 1980s, but his scholarly output over the last two decades, especially the four important monographs (with a combined count of around 3,000 pages) beginning with the Wolfson Prize-winning Framing the Early Middle Ages (2005) and ending with the megahistory presently under review, has been nothing short of breathtaking.An unrepentant Marxist histori…
A Mercantilist Brand: The British East India Company and Madeira Wine, 1756–1834
This study analyzes the long-term power of mercantilist firms and brands in industries characterized by high uncertainty and asset specificity. It contrasts the reputation-building and protection strategies employed in two similar industries in Portugal in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; namely, those of Madeira and Port wine. The Portuguese crown created a collective brand for Port in 1756, the first regional appellation in the wo…
The historian, the shaman, and the werewolf
Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)
English Economic Thought in the Seventeenth Century: Rejecting the Dutch Model
English Economic Thought in the Seventeenth Century: Rejecting the Dutch Model. Seiichiro Ito. Routledge Series in the History of Economics. Abingdon: Routledge, 2021. viii + 216 pp. $160. - Volume 76 Issue 1
Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy
“At the expense of anything?” rejoined Lady Carbury with energy. “One cannot measure such men by the ordinary rule.” —Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now (1875) Facile criticisms of Adam Tooze's new book, Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy , present themselves at once. It suffers by comparison to Tooze's masterpiece, The Wages of Destruction (2006)—easily one of the best historical works of the last two decades, a huge and original t…
Political Economy and the Medici
Using materials from the important collection of Medici manuscripts donated to Harvard Business School by Harry Gordon Selfridge, this paper explores the geopolitics of the transformation of raw wool into finished cloth, and the role played in that process by Medici entrepreneurs, their guild, and their government. It aims to show that the history of political economy cannot truly be understood without business history. Successful business practi…
Italy and the Origins of Capitalism
Capitalism does not seem like a concept in danger of disappearing.At
The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society
Representatives of all nations gather for the utility of mankind; there, the Jew, the Mohammedan, and the Christian behave towards each other as if they were of the same religion, and reserve the word “infidel” for those who go bankrupt. —Voltaire, letter VI, Lettres Philosophiques (1734) Voltaire's words about the London Royal Exchange, quoted by Francesca Trivellato in her important new book The Promise and Peril of Credit , represent pars pro …
Leviathan and Kraken: States, Corporations, and Political Economy
In our politico-philosophical bestiary, no monster has historically been more prominent than the Leviathan, the whale of the Book of Job, transformed by Hobbes, which has long been ubiquitous as a metaphor or as a signifier in all intellectual traditions touching upon the political. Like the state itself, we argue, the Leviathan has played an outsized role in the way we theorize and imagine relations of sovereignty in the world. This essay seeks …
Breaking Even: Political Economy and Private Enterprise in the Norwegian Glass Industry, 1739–1803
Using internal debates and surviving account books, this article traces the eighteenth-century history of the Norwegian glass industry, created to exploit Norway's immense natural resource wealth, and of the chartered company that would later become Norway's iconic Christiania Glasmagasin. The investors in the company, many of them among Norway's “founding fathers,” were individually responsible for its losses and it operated, remarkably, at an a…
New Perspectives on the History of Political Economy
William Caferro , Petrarch's War: Florence and the Black Death in Context
Late in the spring of 1349, Petrarch, famous for his lyrical cries for peace on the Italian peninsula, wrote the priors of Florence urging the city to war. Two of the poet's dearest friends had been attacked while passing through the mountainous terrain controlled by the rural Ubaldini clan, renegade Ghibellines who menaced crucial trade routes between Florence and Bologna and were taking advantage of Florence's vulnerability in the wake of the 1…
The Harvard Research Center in Entrepreneurial History and the Daimonic Entrepreneur
This paper sketches the intellectual history of the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History, founded at Harvard in 1948, which helped established the contours of business history as a discipline. This history was shaped by the rivalry between N. S. B. Gras, the "father of business history," and Arthur H. Cole, which defined still extant polarities in the field of business history. It provides context for the emergence of the figure of the "ent…
Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy
“At the expense of anything?” rejoined Lady Carbury with energy. “One cannot measure such men by the ordinary rule.” —Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now (1875) Facile criticisms of Adam Tooze's new book, Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy , present themselves at once. It suffers by comparison to Tooze's masterpiece, The Wages of Destruction (2006)—easily one of the best historical works of the last two decades, a huge and original t…
The Harvard Research Center in Entrepreneurial History and the Daimonic Entrepreneur
This paper sketches the intellectual history of the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History, founded at Harvard in 1948, which helped established the contours of business history as a discipline. This history was shaped by the rivalry between N. S. B. Gras, the "father of business history," and Arthur H. Cole, which defined still extant polarities in the field of business history. It provides context for the emergence of the figure of the "ent…
The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society
Representatives of all nations gather for the utility of mankind; there, the Jew, the Mohammedan, and the Christian behave towards each other as if they were of the same religion, and reserve the word “infidel” for those who go bankrupt. —Voltaire, letter VI, Lettres Philosophiques (1734) Voltaire's words about the London Royal Exchange, quoted by Francesca Trivellato in her important new book The Promise and Peril of Credit , represent pars pro …
In the Zone: On Quinn Slobodian’s Crack-Up Capitalism and the Spaces of Political Economy
Quinn Slobodian has established himself as a leading historian of neoliberalism. Crack-Up Capitalism continues where his Globalists left off, but shifts focus from visions of global ordering to the fragmentation of the world into special economic zones (SEZs). In Slobodian’s provocative analysis, SEZs become a late neoliberal solution to the entrenched problem of democracy at the nation-state level. We follow Slobodian into the zone, thinking wit…
Political Economy and the Medici
Using materials from the important collection of Medici manuscripts donated to Harvard Business School by Harry Gordon Selfridge, this paper explores the geopolitics of the transformation of raw wool into finished cloth, and the role played in that process by Medici entrepreneurs, their guild, and their government. It aims to show that the history of political economy cannot truly be understood without business history. Successful business practi…
Italy and the Origins of Capitalism
Capitalism does not seem like a concept in danger of disappearing.At
A Mercantilist Brand: The British East India Company and Madeira Wine, 1756–1834
This study analyzes the long-term power of mercantilist firms and brands in industries characterized by high uncertainty and asset specificity. It contrasts the reputation-building and protection strategies employed in two similar industries in Portugal in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; namely, those of Madeira and Port wine. The Portuguese crown created a collective brand for Port in 1756, the first regional appellation in the wo…
Leviathan and Kraken: States, Corporations, and Political Economy
In our politico-philosophical bestiary, no monster has historically been more prominent than the Leviathan, the whale of the Book of Job, transformed by Hobbes, which has long been ubiquitous as a metaphor or as a signifier in all intellectual traditions touching upon the political. Like the state itself, we argue, the Leviathan has played an outsized role in the way we theorize and imagine relations of sovereignty in the world. This essay seeks …
Breaking Even: Political Economy and Private Enterprise in the Norwegian Glass Industry, 1739–1803
Using internal debates and surviving account books, this article traces the eighteenth-century history of the Norwegian glass industry, created to exploit Norway's immense natural resource wealth, and of the chartered company that would later become Norway's iconic Christiania Glasmagasin. The investors in the company, many of them among Norway's “founding fathers,” were individually responsible for its losses and it operated, remarkably, at an a…
The Harvard Research Center in Entrepreneurial History and the Daimonic Entrepreneur
This paper sketches the intellectual history of the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History, founded at Harvard in 1948, which helped established the contours of business history as a discipline. This history was shaped by the rivalry between N. S. B. Gras, the "father of business history," and Arthur H. Cole, which defined still extant polarities in the field of business history. It provides context for the emergence of the figure of the "ent…
New Perspectives on the History of Political Economy
William Caferro , Petrarch's War: Florence and the Black Death in Context
Late in the spring of 1349, Petrarch, famous for his lyrical cries for peace on the Italian peninsula, wrote the priors of Florence urging the city to war. Two of the poet's dearest friends had been attacked while passing through the mountainous terrain controlled by the rural Ubaldini clan, renegade Ghibellines who menaced crucial trade routes between Florence and Bologna and were taking advantage of Florence's vulnerability in the wake of the 1…
Breaking Even: Political Economy and Private Enterprise in the Norwegian Glass Industry, 1739–1803
Using internal debates and surviving account books, this article traces the eighteenth-century history of the Norwegian glass industry, created to exploit Norway's immense natural resource wealth, and of the chartered company that would later become Norway's iconic Christiania Glasmagasin. The investors in the company, many of them among Norway's “founding fathers,” were individually responsible for its losses and it operated, remarkably, at an a…
Political Economy and the Medici
Using materials from the important collection of Medici manuscripts donated to Harvard Business School by Harry Gordon Selfridge, this paper explores the geopolitics of the transformation of raw wool into finished cloth, and the role played in that process by Medici entrepreneurs, their guild, and their government. It aims to show that the history of political economy cannot truly be understood without business history. Successful business practi…
Italy and the Origins of Capitalism
Capitalism does not seem like a concept in danger of disappearing.At
The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society
Representatives of all nations gather for the utility of mankind; there, the Jew, the Mohammedan, and the Christian behave towards each other as if they were of the same religion, and reserve the word “infidel” for those who go bankrupt. —Voltaire, letter VI, Lettres Philosophiques (1734) Voltaire's words about the London Royal Exchange, quoted by Francesca Trivellato in her important new book The Promise and Peril of Credit , represent pars pro …
Leviathan and Kraken: States, Corporations, and Political Economy
In our politico-philosophical bestiary, no monster has historically been more prominent than the Leviathan, the whale of the Book of Job, transformed by Hobbes, which has long been ubiquitous as a metaphor or as a signifier in all intellectual traditions touching upon the political. Like the state itself, we argue, the Leviathan has played an outsized role in the way we theorize and imagine relations of sovereignty in the world. This essay seeks …
Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy
“At the expense of anything?” rejoined Lady Carbury with energy. “One cannot measure such men by the ordinary rule.” —Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now (1875) Facile criticisms of Adam Tooze's new book, Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy , present themselves at once. It suffers by comparison to Tooze's masterpiece, The Wages of Destruction (2006)—easily one of the best historical works of the last two decades, a huge and original t…
The historian, the shaman, and the werewolf
Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)
English Economic Thought in the Seventeenth Century: Rejecting the Dutch Model
English Economic Thought in the Seventeenth Century: Rejecting the Dutch Model. Seiichiro Ito. Routledge Series in the History of Economics. Abingdon: Routledge, 2021. viii + 216 pp. $160. - Volume 76 Issue 1
Consensus, Authority, and Truth in the Early Sixteenth-Century Ius Commune
Medieval rules that bound practicing lawyers and judges to follow the consensus of jurists were systematized in the Renaissance. A high point in the theorization of communis opinio doctorum came in the early sixteenth century. This essay contextualizes this moment by showing its relationship with late-medieval textual and pedagogical practices, new scholarly technologies in the age of print, and, most importantly, law’s essential function as a ge…
In the Zone: On Quinn Slobodian’s Crack-Up Capitalism and the Spaces of Political Economy
Quinn Slobodian has established himself as a leading historian of neoliberalism. Crack-Up Capitalism continues where his Globalists left off, but shifts focus from visions of global ordering to the fragmentation of the world into special economic zones (SEZs). In Slobodian’s provocative analysis, SEZs become a late neoliberal solution to the entrenched problem of democracy at the nation-state level. We follow Slobodian into the zone, thinking wit…
Forms of Capitalism
Reconsidering the Commercial Revolution
retirement and fellow of All Souls College, arrived on the academic scene with a splash in the early 1980s, but his scholarly output over the last two decades, especially the four important monographs (with a combined count of around 3,000 pages) beginning with the Wolfson Prize-winning Framing the Early Middle Ages (2005) and ending with the megahistory presently under review, has been nothing short of breathtaking.An unrepentant Marxist histori…
A Mercantilist Brand: The British East India Company and Madeira Wine, 1756–1834
This study analyzes the long-term power of mercantilist firms and brands in industries characterized by high uncertainty and asset specificity. It contrasts the reputation-building and protection strategies employed in two similar industries in Portugal in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; namely, those of Madeira and Port wine. The Portuguese crown created a collective brand for Port in 1756, the first regional appellation in the wo…
The Officer and the People: Accountability and Authority in Pre-Modern Europe
The Officer and the People: Accountability and Authority in Pre-Modern Europe. María Ángeles Martín Romera and Hannes Ziegler, eds. Studies of the German Historical Institute London. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 380 pp. $105. - Volume 78 Issue 3
Science and Political Economy in Enlightenment Milan, 1760–1805
Political science (13 works) · Law (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Economics (9 works) · Historical Economic and Social Studies (9 works) · History (7 works) · Political economy (6 works) · Economy (5 works) · History (5 works)