I will not attempt to provide an extensive introduction to this book, but I hope the detailed outline and chapter and section headings provide the reader with a map of the topics covered. However, some explanation of the structure, format and approach may be helpful here. The book attempts to provide an account and analysis of some of the main conceptual and institutional forms which have shaped the development of international corporate capitalism over the past century and a half. The focus is on the legal, institutional and regulatory forms, although the analysis is in terms of their development as a historical social process and within a political and economic framework. I focus on law not only because it is my main field, but also because law mediates power in capitalist society. Examining actual legal rules and institutions, providing this is done in their socio-economic context and in historical perspective, enables analysis to go beyond the abstract generalizations of some versions of social and political theory, and indeed helps to contextualize and evaluate those various theories. My aim is to give sufficient detail for an adequate understanding, and at the same time to locate the various theories and viewpoints, including my own, which have tried to rationalize these developments.