Description:
This volume brings together nine chapters by specialist legal historians that address the topic of the scale and size of companies, in both legal and economic history. The bundled texts cover different periods, from the Middle Ages, the Early Modern Period, to the nineteenth century. They analyse the historical development of basic features of present-day corporations and of other company types, among them the general and limited partnership. These features include limited liability and legal personality. A detailed overview is offered of how legal concepts and mercantile practice interacted, leading up to the corporate characteristics that are so important today.
Contributors are: Anja Amend-Traut, Luisa Brunori, Dave De ruysscher, Stefania Gialdroni, Ulla Kypta, Bart Lambert, Annamaria Monti, Carlos Petit, and Bram Van Hofstraeten.
Review Quotes: ''Overall, this collection shows the value of discussing concepts explicitly. It creates some much-needed clarity, and this is perhaps the best way of establishing differences and similarities for comparative legal and historical research.The volume's contributions show the way that legal study, through its demand for precision in language and its definition and meaning, can inform business and economic history;it is a fruitful example of how legal history can be combined with business and economic history''. Victoria Barnes, in Legal History , 27 (2019), pp.322-324.