Colonial Ports, Global Trade, and the Roots of the American Revolution (1700–1776)

Jeremy Land, Ph.D., (2019), Georgia State University, is currently a postdoctoral researcher in economic history at University of Gothenburg and a visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki. His research focuses on the global maritime economy, war, and state capacity in the early modern era.

" Colonial Ports offers an accessible overview of eighteenth-century commercial networks in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Nonspecialists and undergraduates will welcome its clear language, argumentation, and historical background, while specialists will gravitate to its exhaustive quantitative analysis and data tables on the contours of this trade. "---- Grant Kleiser, Columbia University, in: H-Early-America February, 2024 "Land offers a convincing material explanation of the cause of American independence. Tight, well-organized, and quite readable, Land’s book presents an argument that is both straightforward and sophisticated. He successfully argues against several prior interpretations of the political economy of eighteenth-century British North America." - Benjamin L. Carp, Brooklyn College, in: EH.Net (September 2023)

• AcknowledgmentsList of Tables and FiguresAbbreviationsIntroduction1 Historical Background2 Outline1 The Port Complex of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia1 The Regional Complex of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia2 Complementarity and Competition3 Imperial Constraints and Limits4 Conclusion2 Merchants and Mercantile Networks1 Merchants and Communities2 Local Capital Investment in Trade3 Networks and the Regional Complex4 Mechanisms of Trade5 Merchants and the Political Economy6 Conclusion3 Trade and Commodities1 Imports2 East Asian Goods3 Exports4 Sugar5 Mechanisms of Consumption and Demand6 Conclusion4 Inter-colonial Trade1 Quantifying and Defining Inter-colonial Trade2 Coastal and North American Trade3 West Indies Trade4 Conclusion5 Trans-imperial Trade1 Defining Trans-imperial Trade2 Legal(?) Trade3 Smuggling4 Supplying Demand for East Asian Goods5 Transcending Imperial Borders in the Colonial Arena6 Lisbon–Philadelphia Trade7 Conclusion6 “Salutary Neglect” and the Origins of Independence1 “Salutary Neglect” and Imperial Control2 Colonial Merchants as Competitors with English Merchants3 The Seven Years’ War and the 1760s4 Economic Implications of Renewed Imperial Control5 Regional Merchants and Collective Resistance6 Britain’s Military Occupation of Boston and the Sparks of War7 ConclusionConclusion: Revolution or a Battle for Free Trade?AppendicesBibliographyIndex