Foundations of Marketing Thought

The Foundations of Marketing Thought: The Influence of the German Historical School provides a fitting prequel and welcome addition to Bartels’ renowned History of Marketing Thought. Foundations significantly extends Bartels’ intellectual genesis of marketing in the academy to the teachers who influenced the earliest pioneers of marketing thought in the United States as well as the United Kingdom. The authorsalso offer extensive new details into the lives and careers of the marketing pioneers themselves. The book delivers a superbly illuminating origin story of academic marketing. As such, this work belongs on every marketing historian’s bookshelf.

Erik Shaw, Professor of Marketing, College of Business, Florida Atlantic University, USA.

Which intellectual traditions influenced significantly the approaches of the founders of the marketing discipline in the early 1900s? In Foundations of Marketing Thought, D. G. Brian Jones and Mark Tadajewski present detailed, well-sourced, and careful arguments that show that the German Historical School was much more influential than has hitherto been documented, or even acknowledged. No serious student of marketing’s intellectual history can—or should—ignore Foundations’ arguments.

Shelby D. Hunt, The Jerry S. Rawls and P.W. Horn Professor of Marketing, Rawls College of Business Administration, Texas Tech University, USA.

This path breaking monograph will almost certainly have a revolutionary impact on our understanding of the early history of marketing thought. Drawing upon their painstaking archival research, Tadajewski and Jones reveal areas where Bartels, previously the unquestioned authority in this area, was incomplete in his coverage and, as regards the importance of the German Historical School, just plain wrong. The myriad of linkages that existed between that School of Thought and American marketing's earliest scholars are both made clear by these authors and presented within a social and economic context that adds very significant additional value in its own right.

Stanley J. Shapiro, Professor Emeritus, Simon Fraser University, USA

The thought-provoking book makes us rethink the history of marketing. Beautifully crafted in an engaging and accessible style, the authors meticulously document the influence of the German Historical School of Economics on early marketing thought. Using extensive archival research, they track the genealogy of various marketing practices that existed long before they were formally institutionalised. The book is a must-read not only for marketing historians, but also for all scholars interested in the origins of marketplace phenomena.

Pauline Maclaran, Professor of Marketing & Consumer Research in the School of Management at Royal Holloway, UK.