The House of Brown was a major international banking firm during the nineteenth century. The leading banking houses such as Baring Brothers and the Browns facilitated the flow of goods throughout the world by providing a range of services vital to international commerce. Mr. Perkins examines the manner in which the firm did business in a large American port on the eve of the Civil War.

Despite the efforts of American government officials, attempts to establish a joint Chinese-American company to develop China's petroleum potential met with failure during the initial years of the Wilson administration. Duplicity and misunderstanding on the part of Standard Oil and of the Chinese government added another chapter to the dismal history of American business in China.

Professor Muchmore analyzes and edits an interesting Elizabethan document typical of a large body of economic literature in Tudor-Stuart England.

Professor Cohen recounts the operations of the famed auction system in New York, suggesting reasons for its success in the years after the War of 1812 and its decline in the decade of the 1830's.