In the first lecture, Professor Bernstein stressed the idea that the myth of the Medieval law merchant has had a profound effect on the development of modern commercial law. In this video, Professor Bernstein will discuss case studies that explore the existence or nonexistence of unwritten trade usages in more modern merchant communities. In particular, these studies are shown to cast doubt on whether unwritten customs and usages of trade existed in Ameri-can merchant communities at the turn of the 19th Century.