JUNE 2005 JOURNAL OF MACROMARKETING MARKETING HISTORY Periodization in Marketing History Stanley C. Hollander, Kathleen M. Rassuli, D. G. Brian Jones, and Laura Farlow Dix This article explores some of the purposes, advantages, prob- lems, and limitations of periodizing marketing history and the history of marketing thought. A sample of twenty-eight well- known periodizations taken from marketing history, the his- tory of marketing thought, and business history is used to illustrate these themes. The article concludes with recom- mendations about how to periodize historical research in marketing. Keywords: marketing history; history of marketing thought; historiography; periodization Books are often divided into chapters. Stage plays are divided into acts and scenes. For somewhat analogous rea- sons, historians often periodize their narratives. Obviously, the historian does not have to meet the same physical require- ments of stagehands and audience that influence the drama- tist, but many of the same conceptual and literary consider- ations apply. Periodization is the process of dividing the chronological narrative into separately labeled sequential time periods with fairly distinct beginning and ending points. Historical narra- tives may be organized in many ways. They may be divided technically (i.e., by subject matter as with Robert Bartels’s [1976] History of Marketing Thought). Histories may also be organized geographically so as to cover separate events in dif- ferent venues. Nevertheless, within such frameworks, the account of what actually happened will often be presented chronologically and thus may be subject to periodization. The exception is where historical research is used to describe a specific event in time with no comparison, explicit or implicit, to another era. In the latter case there is no opportu- nity for periodization. However, most historical writing is chronological and benefits from periodization. Stowe (1983) particularly notes that Bartels (1976) uses the idea of periodization for the various subjects of marketing thought (e.g., writings on marketing research, advertising, wholesal- ing, general marketing, and retailing). In fact, the editors of the American Historical Review refer to periodization as a fundamental tool for both teaching and research (Grossberg 1996). Despite this, most of us probably use periodization without giving much thought to our approach or technique. In this article, we describe some basic approaches to, and techniques of, periodization in marketing and explore some of the purposes, advantages, problems, and limitations of periodizing marketing history and the history of marketing thought. The distinction between marketing history and the history of marketing thought is somewhat problematic. Fol- lowing Bartels (1976), most marketing historians imitate the practice in economics of separating the history of practice from the history of thought as in the distinction between eco- nomic history and the history of economic thought. Even in that imitation, however, marketing academics have tradition- ally not been as involved in leading practice as have econo- mists in leading economic policy. Business people create most of the innovations in marketing practice, and therefore, we believe that a true history of marketing thought should include marketing history. But that is a subject for another time. Within the history of marketing thought, it is also useful, but somewhat contentious, to distinguish between the history of marketing ideas and the history of the marketing discipline. The former has been traced to the ancient Greeks (Dixon 1979; Shaw 1995) through the medieval ages (Dixon 1980) to the present time, whereas most marketing historians agree that the latter can be dated only to the turn of the twentieth century (Jones and Shaw 2002). Thus, as Stowe (1983) has pointed out of the histories of marketing thought by Grether 32 Thanks are owed to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. Help was also provided by an extraordinary group of undergraduate research assistants, including Ellen Closs, Megan Closs, Melinda Bradley, Jessica Meyers, and especially Cheryl Hanson. Roger Dickinson of the University of Texas, Arlington, offered helpful advice and insights. We are also indebted to Dr. Franklin Dewitt Platt, professor emeritus, and to Steven Sowards, head reference librarian, both at Michigan State University. Journal of Macromarketing, Vol. 25 No. 1, June 2005 32-41 DOI: 10.1177/0276146705274982 © 2005 Sage Publications at QUINNIPIAC UNIV on May 24, 2015 jmk.sagepub.com Downloaded from