★A pioneering book for entrepreneurs in new age! Written by Dr. Eamon Butler, the director of the Adam Smith Institute, a leading economic and strategic think tank.

★The book fully explains the importance of entrepreneurship and its economic and social significance, which is a valuable supplement to this field.

★With the world-renowned samples of entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, as well as the practice and attempt of organizations and governments, the book explores the nature of entrepreneurship, and objectively explains its advantages and disadvantages.

Entrepreneurs play a pivotal role in boosting progress, productivity and prosperity. They drive economic growth and create new opportunities. Their innovations transform people’s lives. Yet their enormous contribution is not widely understood – and is often completely overlooked in economics textbooks. Here, author Eamonn Butler sets the record straight – explaining the vital role of entrepreneurship, exploring its economic and social significance, and examining the conditions needed for it to thrive.
Along the way, he considers the kind of “unusual” people who become entrepreneurs. Who knew, for example, that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Uber founder Travis Kalanick all dropped out of university? Or that Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson and IKEA founder Ingvar Kampgrad never went to university at all?
An introduction to Entrepreneurship spotlights the strengths of entrepreneurship, whilst acknowledging its shortcomings. It discusses (often-misguided) attempts by governments to foster it. And it eloquently states the case for rehabilitating entrepreneurship into mainstream economics and politics. Above all, it provides an appreciation of – and a basic introduction to – what entrepreneurship is, why we need it, and how we can encourage it.

Eamonn Butler
Eamonn Butler is Director of the Adam Smith Institute, rated one of the world’s leading policy think-tanks. He has degrees in economics, philosophy and psychology, gaining a PhD from the University of St Andrews in 1978. During the 1970s he worked on pensions and welfare issues for the US House of Representatives, and taught philosophy in Hillsdale College, Michigan, before returning to the UK to help found the Adam Smith Institute.
Eamonn is author of books on the pioneering economists Milton Friedman, F. A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and Adam Smith, and co-author of Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls and books on intelligence testing. He contributes to the leading UK print and broadcast media on current issues, and his recent popular publications The Best Book on the Market, The Rotten State of Britain and The Alternative Manifesto have attracted considerable attention. He has also contributed articles to national magazines and newspapers on subjects ranging from health policy, economic management, taxation and public spending, transport, pensions, and welfare.
He is a former winner of the UK’s National Free Enterprise Award.