Carl Crow (1884-1945) was a Missouri-born businessman and author who opened the first Western advertising agency in Shanghai, China, which he ran for more than 25 years. In the 1930s and 1940s, Crow wrote 13 books, including his most popular work 400 Million Customers (1937). Crow was also founding editor of the Shanghai Evening Post. In China, - a shopkeeper chooses his employees not for their intelligence, industry and honesty, but because they are members of important and influential families whose trade the shopkeeper desires; the women will not accept, even as a gift, a packet of assorted needles; orthodox poker is played as it was played in Texas thirty years ago; a man likes to conduct his business in the open so that every passer-by may see and comment upon his industry; an empty beer bottle is counted a precious gift.... The pages of this candid and hilarious book are crowded with these and thousands of other diverting facts which Carl Crow had the opportunity to gather through his more than twenty-five years in China as newspaper correspondent and advertising man. Brought up to date by the author before his death, this is a book of endless delight and rich human wisdom, a book that brings you valuable knowledge of a great people.

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Carl Crow，Crow在1937年寫瞭《四萬萬消費者》(400 Million Customers)一書，記敘瞭關於中國人和在中國作生意的精彩故事和深刻見解，書中的很多內容到今天都是正確的。

Crow對中國發自內心深處地尊敬和贊賞，如他所道：“有趣的、惱人的、費解的，以及總是那麼可愛的中國人”。我亦有同感。

我寫本書的目的，也是希望能夠和Crow一樣，讓讀者瞭解那些跨越時間的對在中國做生意的見解和常識，中國人骨子裏的思考和行為模式。

書中包括瞭來自學術界的觀點、第一手的經驗、生動的敘述，以及輕鬆的幽默，力圖將讀者真正帶入到中國的商業界中去。