'This is an outstanding book, original in its scholarship, and in the kind of questions it asks and in the way it seeks to answer them, technically accomplished and extremely well written. Years of work have gone into this magisterial study of English economic history at a particularly interesting stage, when there was everything to play for and the odds against winning were formidable. The triumph of this book is the author's ability to stand back from his researches and to summarise in simple, vigorous language which his sitter would certainly approve what manner of man he was and what lights he steered by. The roundness, the completeness of this portrait can hardly be glimpsed in a short review. The information and insights it contains are worthy of Braudel.' Richard Ollard, The Mariner's Mirror, Volume 80 (1994) Grassby has produced an excellent and highly readable biography.
The Economic History Review
This is business biography at its best, and anyone interested in the minutuae of early modern business practice cannot afford to ignore it.
Business History
meticulously researched biography
American Historical Review
a learned, important ... work ... It draws upon prodigious research, citing manuscripts from over sixty archives and concludes with a valuable edition of North's economic writings and of the passages omitted from the printed version of the Life of Sir Dudley North.
Mark S.R. Jenner, University of York, Urban History, Vol. 23, Pt 2 - Aug 96
Grassby...writes with impressive conciseness and authority... Grassby's success in re-creating from contemporary ledgers, journals and correspondenceboth North's personality and his milieu must be pronounced a remarkable achievement
English Historical Review