David A Harper – författare

Enterpreneurship is central to the market process, and yet most theories of it fail to tackle the problem of how economic agents learn from their experience. This book redresses this by systematically applying the ideas of Karl Popper. It treats the entrepeneur as a theorist who develops conjectures which are then tested by exposure to the market, in an effort to eliminate errors. This is a critical aspect of the development of new ventures, as most entrepeneurial ideas turn out to be mistakes, at least in their original form.

This well-written book is the first to deal with entrepreneurship in all its aspects. It considers the economic, psychological, political, legal and cultural dimensions of entrepreneurship from a market-process perspective. David A Harper has produced a volume that analyses why some people are quicker than others in discovering profit opportunities. Importantly, the book also covers the issue of how cultural value systems orient entrepreneurial vision and, in contrast to conventional wisdom, the book argues that individualist cultural values are not categorically superior to group oriented values in terms of their consequences for entrepreneurial discovery.

This well-written book is the first to deal with entrepreneurship in all its aspects. It considers the economic, psychological, political, legal and cultural dimensions of entrepreneurship from a market-process perspective. David A Harper has produced a volume that analyses why some people are quicker than others in discovering profit opportunities. Importantly, the book also covers the issue of how cultural value systems orient entrepreneurial vision and, in contrast to conventional wisdom, the book argues that individualist cultural values are not categorically superior to group oriented values in terms of their consequences for entrepreneurial discovery.

Enterpreneurship is central to the market process, and yet most theories of it fail to tackle the problem of how economic agents learn from their experience. This book redresses this by systematically applying the ideas of Karl Popper. It treats the entrepeneur as a theorist who develops conjectures which are then tested by exposure to the market, in an effort to eliminate errors. This is a critical aspect of the development of new ventures, as most entrepeneurial ideas turn out to be mistakes, at least in their original form.

Paradise Lost and the Making of English Literary Criticism identifies the early reception of Paradise Lost as a site of contest over the place of literature in political and religious controversy. Milton’s earliest readers and critics (Dryden, Addison, Dennis, Hume, and Bentley) confronted a poem and author at odds with the prevailing culture and the revanchist conservatism of the restored monarchy. Grappling with the epic required navigating Milton’s reputation as a “fanatick” who had called in print for Charles I’s execution, inveighed openly against monarchy on the eve of Charles II’s return, and held heretical views on the trinity, baptism, and divorce. Harper argues that foundational figures in English literary criticism rose to this challenge by innovating new ways of reading: producing creative (and subversive) rewritings of Paradise Lost, articulating new theories of the sublime, explaining the poem in the first substantial body of annotations for an English vernacular text, and by pioneering early forms of textual criticism and editing.