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D. G. Brian Jones and Mark Tadajewski. The Routledge Companion to Marketing History

The Routledge Companion to Marketing History is a trove of valuable knowledge, beautifully written, accurately researched, and a must read for any aspiring marketing academic or manager and those interested in the history of the discipline.Much of the book focuses onmacromarketing: the extent to which marketing principles are influenced and, in turn, influence political, economic, technological, ethical, and cultural changes. An interesting subtheme is that certain marketing principles transcend the passage of time in the histories of the great civilizations and modern nations. This book takes us on a journey through ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations; China’s Qin Dynasty; the fall of Rome; and the establishment of Moscow as a political, mercantile, and economic hub of Russia during the rule of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. Further investigation reveals the East India Company’s agreement with the Mughal Empire, 18th century English trade leading into the Industrial Revolution, and the Boston Tea Party. Description of the Japanese Meiji period provides some Asian focus on marketing practices. The book highlights significant events affecting modern economies such as the passing of the Sherman Act in the United States (U.S.), the Canadian Confederation, the Scandinavian market, World War I, World War II (see Köhler and Logemann’s account of Markentechnik [branding techniques] within the “Nazi marketplace”), propaganda within Soviet retailing, and finally, the discovery of the “Americanized consumer.” These historical accounts name but a few of the many fascinating anecdotes found within this tome of marketing knowledge. Although the “genesis of trade is long lost in the mists of time” (p. 23), a central factor in the evolution of marketing exchange is bartering—the exchange of goods for goods—aprocess streamlinedwith the creation of money: this unit, at the centre of commerce, has long served as a critical medium of exchange. The challenge came in standardizing coinage with each city deploying different weights, measures, and coinage (further complicated because not all coins were accepted from city-to-city). If the economy is the wheel of trade, then money is the oil that renders the process of transactional exchange smooth and easy.1 However, money also served another purpose: the discovery of the use of coinage as a medium of exchange also influenced the art of moneymaking. Thus although the genesis of trade is ambiguous, the genesis of marketing is the individual’s path to wealth. If marketing helped create wealth, then wars, plagues, and famine contributed to its destruction. The Bubonic Plague (1347–1400 CE) and the Hundred Years War (1337–1450 CE) are considered to be the major causes of the demise of trade across Europe, hence the creation of an innovative instrument: credit. Promissory notes or bills of exchange were a more convenient means of payment. And thus, the first theme of the book is developed in light of the discussion in Chapter 2: “a cornerstone of ancient trade practice was establishing trust and maintaining stable trading relationships” (p. 38). Although tactics, processes, technology, and mediums have changed over the centuries, the fundamental purpose of marketing remains the same: “sellers and buyers creating stable market relationships” (p. 39). The second theme developed in this book is a discussion of consumption, the history of which is framed within consumer culture theory. Consumption not only involves acquisition, use, and disposal activities—that is, what consumers do—but it is also about what people think and feel about consumption. One might ask should consumers be “protected” from themselves when it comes to the consumption of alcohol, drugs, gambling, prostitution, and other perceived vices?