The Fourth Economy

Social invention is the oft-overlooked twin to technological invention. Entrepreneurship is a form of social invention.

“Culture is a gadget; it’s something we inherit. And you can fix it the way you can fix a broken oil burner.” - Kurt Vonnegut

Download and read the free introductory section of the book here.

History

Read The Fourth Economy if you want to understand how the world you live in came to be. You'll learn more about the actors who defined intellectual movements like the Renaissance, Enlightenment and Pragmatism. And you'll learn about the origins of the nation-state, bank, and corporation, the big social inventions that do so much to define the individual in the West. This will give you a context for personalities as big as Henry VIII and Leonardo da Vinci, Henry Ford and William James and characters you'll remember but have not heard about - people like Pope Boniface and Wilhelm Humboldt.

Most importantly, it'll give you a map to help you define how you will shape history.

What Readers Are Saying

"The Fourth Economy puts our economic progress in a new context that will not only make you more hopeful for the future but also help you identify new opportunities."

"Absolutely fascinating book." 

"Your new book is blowing my mind. I'm learning new things on almost every page."

"This book is both a great economic history lesson and a well thought out theory on how our society can / will progress in the coming years. I highly recommend it!"

"Davison has an excellent writing style that is engaging and often highly humorous. Despite the broad scope and big ideas he covers, his structure allows you to follow along. I found it to be an amazing, and extremely enjoyable intellectual adventure. I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to better understand the growth of western civilization."

"I was also impressed by the book's readability. I think it's great when a history book reads more like a novel, encouraging one to turn the next page. This one does that."

"It's peppered with quotes, examples, and anecdotes that make it a lot of fun to read."

"Very insightful book .... His theory of how social innovation disrupts and then transforms every economic era is very thought provoking. Our future looks bright if the author's thesis that entrepreneurs will become more and more common as 'the self' is less defined by the institutions we associate with and more by what we do, create and believe individually."

"Interesting, informative, funny ..."