The book studies in detail the leading Chinese merchants and merchant families as well as the porcelain and silk trades.

By examining the successes and failures of dozens of Chinese merchants involved in foreign trade, it provides fresh insights into China's unique form of capitalism and her role in the rise of global commerce.

Merchants were central to the huge growth in China's foreign trade and contributed to the development of world markets and networks.

Merchants of Canton and Macao: Success and Failure in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Trade brings together much new research about the inner workings of the merchants of Canton and Macao.

A relatively small but important number of Republic marks are also included.

This is a great study which will be the ultimate work on the subject for many years to come.

It is as complete as the available documentation at present makes possible; it is concise, well organized and the subject is researched with great thoroughness. Van Dyke is professor of history at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and author of The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast 1700–1845 (2005) and Merchants of Canton and Macao: Politics and Strategies in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Trade (2011).

Added to this is the fact that some of the Republic Period artists are still alive, or their offspring are, and they have been able to outline their histories first hand.

Davison states that more Chinese ceramics are unmarked rather than marked, but this is definitely not the case during the Republic Period. The original reason for this may have been the requirement for place of origin to be shown on all imported items to the USA after 1891, but there must be other reasons as well, including the fact that there were so many new private companies itching to advertise their presence.