Time Lines

All the timelines for entrepreneurship in Exhibit I-1 start roughly in the 18^th century, because the 18^th century was when entrepreneurship began to be studied and written about in earnest (Cantillon’s work is generally cited as the first), so that’s where the literature really begins to take form. In Exhibit I-1, I present eleven timelines that trace words and concepts relative to the history of entrepreneurship and its study. Each timeline is intended to provide a dimensional progression of entrepreneurship that has been studied and written about. These timelines are obviously abstract, subjective and are representations of patterns that I’ve gleaned from reviewing the literature and applying a little imagination. A compilation of some of the literature on which I base these timelines is presented in Table I-1, which lists some noteworthy entrepreneurship theorists and writers from the 18^th century through today that have left an indelible impression on the field and myself. Many of the quotes that you find in Table I-1 were extracted from two scholarly efforts in particular, those are Herbert and Link (1983) and Gartner (1994), who themselves organized chronological lists of scholars and writers. I thank them for their groundwork. Some of these more salient patterns of historical evolution are explored in more depth next.