Although it is obvious that politics, money, and economic conditions were closely interrelated in the twenty years before the Revolution, this is the first account to bring together these strands of early American experience. Ernst also provides and analytical case study of the impact on America of British monetary policy during a period of dramatic shifts in the Atlantic economy and suggests that earlier studies are questionable because of theoretical misconceptions concerning the importance of visible" money." Originally published in 1973. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

"What is money, and how did specific kinds of currency come to be accepted in the early United States? Katie Moore here uncovers how American norms around money took shape and what kinds of power relationships they encoded. Drawing on the work not only of historians but of anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and economists, Moore summons a colonial world where different systems of money and value competed for dominance. Some forms of exchange were official, others informal, some interregional, others local-all of them, Moore shows, social phenomena: ways of revealing how early Americans evaluated qualities like trust and judgment, not just value"--

The brief appearance of a ghost late at night begins a series of comic misunderstandings during which the narrator's mother throws a shoe through a neighbor's window and his grandfather shoots a policeman.

In The Currency of Empire, Jonathan Barth explores the intersection of money and power in the early years of North American history, and he shows how the control of money informed English imperial action overseas. The export-oriented mercantile economy promoted by the English Crown, Barth argues, directed the plan for colonization, the regulation of colonial commerce, and the politics of empire. The imperial project required an orderly flow of gold and silver, and thus England's colonial regime required stringent monetary regulation. As Barth shows, money was also a flash point for resistance; many colonists acutely resented their subordinate economic station, desiring for their local economies a robust, secure, and uniform money supply. This placed them immediately at odds with the mercantilist laws of the empire and precipitated an imperial crisis in the 1670s, a full century before the Declaration of Independence. The Currency of Empire examines what were a series of explosive political conflicts in the seventeenth century and demonstrates how the struggle over monetary policy prefigured the patriot reaction to the Stamp Act and so-called Intolerable Acts on the eve of American independence. Thanks to generous funding from the Arizona State University and George Mason University, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access (OA) volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other Open Access repositories.

An Economic History of the United States is an accessible and informative survey designed for undergraduate courses on American economic history. The book spans from 1607 to the modern age and presents a documented history of how the American economy has propelled the nation into a position of world leadership. Noted economic historian Ronald E. Seavoy covers nearly 400 years of economic history, beginning with the commercialization of agriculture in the pre-colonial era, through the development of banks and industrialization in the nineteenth century, up to the globalization of the business economy in the present day.

By the American Revolution, the farmers and city-dwellers of British America had achieved, individually and collectively, considerable prosperity. The nature and extent of that success are still unfolding. In this first comprehensive assessment of where research on prerevolutionary economy stands, what it seeks to achieve, and how it might best proceed, the authors discuss those areas in which traditional work remains to be done and address new possibilities for a 'new economic history.'

"This book was presented in part as the 1981 Jefferson Memorial Lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, May 19-21, 1981"--T.p. verso.

Political historians recognize the colonial years and the American Revolution, the early national era and the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the nineteenth century and the American Civil War as the three most important eras in American history. Recreating the American Republic offers the first comparative historical analysis and synthesis of these.