Merchants and Empire

In this important new book, Cathy Matson breaks the mold by examining the entire New York merchant community across the entire colonial period. This inclusiveness yields good results; it provides a better understanding of New York's success as an American port city... Matson constructs her story out of careful research in the extensive correspondence and account books left by New York merchants and tells her story in rich and compelling detail, along the way constructing a new standard and a new paradigm for scholarship on colonial merchants.

The book is a major new contribution to New York and colonial economic and commercial history..[It] has readability and interest for anyone with a taste for American History.

Matson offers a very detailed view of the growth of the New York mercantile community..backed by extensive documentation.

Merchants and Empire capably shows how New York became a great port..[It] is a valuable addition to historical literature on the commercial development of American colonies and on the economic growth of American Cities.

Matson's subject is a hsitorically important phenomenon, her agenda significant, and her presentation a potentially powerful explication of merchant ideology.

Matson's book not only makes an important contribution to scholarship on the economic history of New York and the Middle colonies but also provides a comprehensive analysis of developments in Anglo-American economic discourse between 1620 and 1770.

Merchants and Empire is a very solid study of New York merchants and a valuable addition to the literature of Anglo-American Atlantic commerce.