This book is the first to describe the role of business interest groups, also known as pressure groups, in the development of Brazil during the nineteenth century. Business interest groups strongly affected the modernization and prosperity of agriculture, the pace of industrialisation, and patterns of communications. Although they sometimes initiated enterprises themselves, they most affected development by influencing the scope and direction of government aid. The most important of business interest groups, the commercial associations, also may be seen as institutions through which ties of dependency to better-developed nations overseas were maintained.

"...an important contribution to the literature on Brazilian economic history. It goes a long way toward the development of a literature on the political economy of the monarchy (a subject about which we know amazingly little) and lays out the basic issues that future scholars will want to address in more detail." Journal of Economic Literature

"Solid archival research in Brazil and the United Kingdom, together with exhaustive consultation of government documents, contemporary journals and newspapers, and secondary printed sources provide the authority to make this the definitive history of business interest groups between 1834 and 1900." International History Review

"The range of materials and hypotheses presented make this an important contribution to the study of nineteenth-century business and political history." Canadian Journal of History

"This is an illuminating study....this important monograph provides a comprehensive portrait of a significant sector of Brazilian economic society during a formative period in the nation's history. The product of two decades of extensive reasearch, Riding's work should add new perspective to the debate on Brazil's nineteenth-century development and why it took the direction it did." The Americas

"Ridings not only illuminates a great number of historical crannies of interest to the Brazilianist historian, but also raises important issues for understanding the course of Brazil's overall economic history." Richard Graham, Book Reviews

"This carefully crafted work fills an important gap in the literature." Muriel Nazzari, American Historical Review