Book description
This is the first English translation of Benedetto Cotrugli's The Book of the Art of Trade, a lively account of the life of a Mediterranean merchant in the Early Renaissance, written in 1458. The book is an impassioned defense of the legitimacy of mercantile practices, and includes the first scholarly…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Book of the Art of Trade as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
The first “how to” business book, and what surprised me about it was how, for Cotrugli, being a good merchant was as much about being morally upright as about being profitable.
He spends as much time telling merchants how to pray as he does how to handle their ledgers (the book is historically famous for being the first European work to explain double-entry bookkeeping).
What I found fascinating about this book is how modern Cotrguli sounds; maybe it’s the work of the translators, but he comes across as somebody you could talk to today. And he is impassioned with his…
From Paul's list on The best books that show how greed became good.
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