ABSTRACT
The classic views of entrepreneurship that have emerged within the business literature are linked to the work of Austrian–American economist Joseph Schumpeter. To fully appreciate Schumpeter’s vision, however, a broader framework is useful. His discussion of the entrepreneur parallels the heroic view of history developed by Thomas Carlyle that was influential in the 19th century and reworked by other intellectuals including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Frederick Nietzsche. In addition, Schumpeter’s depiction of the entrepreneur closely parallels the perspectives of American civilization that emerged from Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis as reinterpreted by writers such as Owen Wister and Elbert Hubbard. Thus, the temper of the times appears to be reflected in Schumpeter’s vision of entrepreneurs as heroic and impassioned individuals who, casting a long shadow, transform their world.
