Thomas M. Larkin examines the Hong Kong-based Augustine Heard & Company, the most prominent American trading firm in treaty-port China, to explore the ways American elites at once made and were made by British colonial society

"The US government has long sought investment opportunities for US companies in developing countries. But the results have been mixed: firms have preferred to invest in the industrial world and developing-world leaders have not always welcomed foreign investment. Violence and the presence of...