This book is about innovation and the evolution of industries. It is the result of more than a decade of exciting collaboration and intense interaction among the four of us. Although we have been publishing articles on this topic over the years, the book represents an original contribution, in that the chapters are new or revised significantly from previously published articles. This book is also novel in that for the first time it provides the reader with a consistent, integrated and complete view of the nature and value of what we call “history-friendly” models, which aim at a deeper and more articulated theoretical analysis as well as empirical understanding of the dynamics of technologies, market structure and industries.

It all started during the nineties, as the four of us met at conferences in Europe and the United States. While listening to presentations and discussing papers, we were always impressed by the richness of industry and firm case studies, which told complex dynamic stories and highlighted the key role played by technological and organizational capabilities and learning in innovation and the evolution of industries. Often, powerful qualitative theories lay behind these cases. In the late nineties, Malerba and Orsenigo developed detailed studies of the evolution of respectively the computer industry and pharmaceuticals for the book Dick was putting together with David Mowery, The Sources of Industrial Leadership (Cambridge University Press, 1999). During this time in our meetings with Sid, we often discussed the industry histories that were being put together for the book.

Thus it was natural for the four of us to start talking about the relationship between the rich qualitative theories that were associated with the industry histories and the then prevalent terse and compact modeling of industry dynamics. We started to discuss how formal models could complement appreciative theory and histories. So, the idea was launched to start a research project that would try to capture and represent in a formal way the gist and richness of the different patterns of industrial evolution as described in the histories that we were familiar with, and the theories that went with these histories, by developing models that would highlight the specific dynamics of those sectors.