Merchants and Empire: Trading in Colonial New York

In Merchants and Empire, Cathy Matson examines the economic ideas and behavior of New York City's commercial wholesalers, especially the middling merchants who, as a majority of active traders, affected the character of city commerce over its colonial years. Although less prominent in transatlantic dry goods commerce than the great traders, this middling majority spread dissenting economic ideas and flouted political authority time and again when the benefits to their interests were clear. Indeed, middling or lesser merchants fashioned a plausible alternative to mercantilism, and contributed significantly to the challenges Americans offered to British rule in the final colonial years.

Author: Cathy Matson
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 03/01/2003
Pages: 472
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.53lbs
Size: 9.02h x 6.44w x 1.18d
ISBN: 9780801872471

About the Author

Cathy Matson is an associate professor of history at the University of Delaware. She is coauthor of A Union of Interests: Politics and Economy in the Revolutionary Era.

This title is not returnable