Standing Guard: Protecting Foreign Capital in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Foreign investors are drawn abroad by the lure of profits, but they also face significant risks. Standing Guard examines how investors coped with these risks and protected their capital abroad in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Toward the end of the twentieth century, less—developed countries, determined to control their own economic development, nationalized their most lucrative oil fields and mineral concessions and regulated all forms of foreign investment. While some firms were...