This highly illustrated book descibes how places have been `sold' or promoted to make themselves attractive locations as holiday resorts, business centres or residential areas. Explains the history of current practice, using world-wide examples.

The book provides the first definitive, scholarly, and systematic history of the Chambers of Commerce (local organizations of business people) from their origins in the 18th century, through their historical development up to the present date. Based on new and previously inaccessible archive information, it covers the UK, Ireland, USA, and Canada.