Walter Mead's book God and Gold gives the best history of democracy and commerce that I have seen from a major publisher.
He does an excellent job of showing the origins of democracy in the Dutch Republic during the Protestant reformation in the late 1500s and the dramatic creation of the first international industrial commercial society, with stocks, bonds, national banking, taxation and insurance.
Mead understands that all of this Dutch genius was transferred to England when the Dutch army conquered England in 1688 and installed William of Orange and Mary as King and Queen.
What has always baffled me is the subsequent rise of England and the decline of Holland. Mead answers that puzzle. England is an island that doesn't need to divert its military to defense against invading neighbors. Holland is not. England could devote all resources to its navy, while Holland needed domestic protection from France and Austria.
Mead also adds to the general understanding of the relationship between the emergence of industrial commerce and religion, beyond Max Weber, by comparing Catholic and Protestant on the basis of anti-status-quo. The comparison stands up. The Roman Catholic, top-down world was anti-democracy and forcefully pro-status quo. Protestantism wasn't, which made room for industrial commerce.
We forget, as Mead points out, Protestants including Puritans were as violent and disruptive as modern day Islamic suicide murderers.