The Early Modern Atlantic Economy.

Edited by John J. McCusker and Kenneth Morgan. (New York and other cities: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiv, 369. $59.95, ISBN 0-521-78249-X.)

In recent decades no scholar has contributed more than Jacob M. Price to our understanding of trade patterns and commercial organization in the Atlantic world during the "early modern" period. The author of several hugely influential books--most notably, the two-volume France and the Chesapeake: A History of the French Tobacco Monopoly, 1674-1791, and of its Relationship to the British and American Tobacco Trades (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1973) and Capital and Credit in British Overseas Trade: The View from the Chesapeake, 1700-1776 (Cambridge, Mass., 1980)--as well as scores of important articles, Price has not only done much of the foundational research in the field but also inspired many talented colleagues and proteges to follow in his scholarly footsteps. Price's influence is readily apparent in The Early Modern Atlantic Economy, a fine new collection of essays dedicated to the retired University of Michigan historian.

In times past, this book would have been billed as a festschrift, but publishers now shy away from the "F word" on commercial grounds. Questions of definition (and marketing) notwithstanding, the volume represents a well-conceived and executed set of studies focused around the principal themes with which Price was concerned over the course of his long career: trade patterns, mercantile organization, business networks, entrepreneurship, and early modern economic life more generally. Thirteen specialists contributed essays to the volume, which editors John J. McCusker and Kenneth Morgan, distinguished economic historians both, have divided into four discrete parts: the role of merchants and their connections; the development of trades; imperial economies; and colonial working societies. As in any such undertaking, the essays are somewhat uneven in quality, but all are at least solid and substantial, and a half-dozen or more are outstanding.

The terms Atlantic history and Atlantic economy have become buzzwords of late, though it is often difficult to state precisely what those employing the terms mean to signify in using them. Nonetheless, it seems fair to say that at a minimum most historians of the early modern "Atlantic World" proceed under two assumptions: first, that the Atlantic basin--western Europe, West Africa, and the Americas--was becoming more or less integrated in the period between roughly 1500 and 1800; and second, that the constituent parts thereof, ipso facto, can best be studied in a unified rather than fractional way. In economic terms, such assumptions imply that students of trade patterns, labor markets, capital flows, etc., will perforce find it necessary to transcend or, better yet, "breach" or even "transgress" imperial ties, national boundaries, ethnic affinities, and continental constraints to fully apprehend and appreciate the contours of early modern economic life. If the Atlanticist conceit still seems a bit narrow to me in light of the recent challenge posed by so-called global historians, one cannot gainsay the fact that it has taken the field of what used to be called early American history by storm.

Most of the contributors to the volume under review would seem to share Atlanticist assumptions. Many of the essays explicitly take Atlanticist approaches to the phenomena they treat, while others do so implicitly through comparative analyses of one sort or another. For my money, the strongest essays in The Early Modern Atlantic Economy are those relating to mercantile risk and credit (Peter Mathias); the trades in Madeira wine (David Hancock) and rum (John J. McCusker); the revolutionary (and reciprocal) effect(s) of European demand for tropical goods (Carole Shammas); the respective economic trajectories of British and French America (Stanley L. Engerman); and British monetary policy just before and during the Napoleonic era (Patrick K. O'Brien). Other readers will have their own favorites, for several other essays in the volume are arguably as good as those mentioned above, and every essay included is worth reading. It should be noted, too, that the editors set things up nicely with a brisk and tight introduction. In fine, The Early Modern Atlantic Economy is an estimable collection of essays by eminent scholars focused around the principal concerns of an economic historian of monumental substance and import. In other words, it is an exemplary festschrift. Jacob Price should be both proud and honored by the volume.

PETER A. COCLANIS
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill