Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600--1900 Chicago without which all hope for

without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper

"a great comic vision

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Together in one volume—the first three books in the world’s most beloved science-fiction series

and social legacies

Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600--1900 Chicago without which all hope forCommerce meets conquest in this swashbuckling story of the six merchant adventurers who built the modern world It was an era when monopoly trading companies were the unofficial agents of European expansion, controlling vast numbers of people and huge tracts of land, and taking on governmental and military functions. They managed their territories as business interests, treating their subjects as employees, customers, or competitors. The leaders of