This volume, comprising papers given at a session of the International Economic History Congress in Madrid in 1998, positively invites uneven treatment, at least in a short review. Three of the four sections contain papers on industrialization, technology and institutional transfers, and the monetary history of East Asia and the Pacific Rim. It is not a discourtesy to say that these items are standard conference fare, some of them very interesting, others rather inconclusive, and the whole so diverse as to defy generalization. What lifts the collection above the routine is a piece by Jeffrey G. Williamson on “Globalization, Factor Prices and Living Standards in Asia Before 1940.” As the editors recognize in giving this essay the first section of the volume entirely to itself, it is so innovative and challenging as to dominate the book and hence to warrant concentrating on it here.