Drama following the week of excess and tragedy that marks the reunion of four middle-aged college friends. Richard (Thomas Jane), Ron (Jeremy Piven), Jonathan (Rob Lowe) and Tim (Christian McKay) first met in college and have since holidayed together almost every year. Each of the men has problems. Richard is an author and English teacher but feels he has underachieved by only having one book published; Ron has made a great deal of money as a stockbroker but is under investigation for embezzlement; Jonathan runs a successful medical practice but has family problems; while Tim blames himself for a recent fatal car crash. As the men consume drugs, attempt to seduce women and party hard, their thoughts gradually return to a pact they made together when they were younger - a pact that, if honoured, will have deadly consequences...

In its transformation from an agrarian to an industrial economy, the United States saw a fundamental change in the marketing of manufactured goods during the 19th century. Changes in distribution were at least as important as changes in production, as the authors demonstrate in this unique account of the rise of modern marketing. Their focus is on iron, tobacco, railway supplies, and perishable goods, and they show how rising industrial capacity, the concentration of markets, and advancing technology forced new methods of distribution and the decline of independent merchants and wholesalers. By the beginning of the 20th century the outlines of a new economic order had emerged, one in which the modern corporation became the dominant institution. "A splendid study in business history. And it is business history of the best kind, that which relates changes in business organizations and practice to the mainstream of economic development."-Journal of Southern History. "No one before Porter and Livesay has so carefully delineated the transition from the old mercantile to the new industrial world...A good book about an important subject."-Choice.