Christian Heath is Professor at the Work, Interaction and Technology Research Centre, Department of Management, King's College London.

• Preface; 1. Auctions: institutional form and interactional organisation; 2. The orders of bidding; 3. Trust and the integrity of bids; 4. Establishing competition: creating an impression of demand; 5. Bidding and the pursuit of bids; 6. Remote presence and on-line participation; 7. On the strike of the hammer; 8. Embodied interaction and the order of markets; Appendix I. Glossary of terms; Appendix II. Transcription notation; References.

'… Christian Heath has written a wonderfully engaging and detailed account of how auctions are practically accomplished. The book provides a methodologically sophisticated investigation of a financially significant business activity. In so doing it offers an exemplary case study of social interaction in a workplace setting.' Tom Horlick-Jones, Symbolic Interaction