Established: lessons from the world's oldest companies

Heritage. Adaptation. Values. Flexibility.

From the oldest pub in the world to the Liberty Bell and the origins of a nation, Established: Lessons from the World's Oldest Companies tells the stories of twelve businesses with a combined age of almost 5,000 years. They've survived war, plague, rebellion, boom, bust, depression and strange twists of fate. But how and what can we learn from them.

Spanning the local and the global, family businesses and household names such as Guinness and Wrigley, Established seeks to uncover the secrets behind the longevity of these twelve remarkable institutions. This is a book with points to make through stories told; all reinforced by photographs, many of them historic. Today the average lifespan of a business seems shorter than ever. The companies included here stand as living testaments to the value of rich, compelling stories in a world of quick-fix branding.