Companies That Changed the World tells the fascinating stories of 50 joint-stock companies, or companies based on that model, that have exerted a critical influence on the social and economic history of the past four hundred years. As well as describing clearly and accessibly the companies’ growth and influence over time, and profiling the pioneering entrepreneurs who built them, Jonanthan Mantle’s text is full of intriguing information, from the role played by the humble pigeon in the history of news dissemination to how a pharmacist’s five-cent patient medicine became the world’s most powerful brand.