– Steven A. Cook, FP columnist Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600-1900 by Stephen Bown (Thomas Dunne Books) As admiration for – and anger towards – US technology companies grows around the world, Stephen Bown’s book Merchant Kings is an enlightening read. Bown takes us back to what he calls the “age of heroic commerce” – an era when a handful of companies transformed geoeconomics, including the English East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the Russian American Company. Bown’s lucid account of the ambitious men who led these companies and their...