The Rise of the Atlantic Economies

This book is a compact store of economic facts from early American colonies and their European motherlands between the 15th and the 18th centuries. Its geographical and chronological scopes are broad, but the narrative is very tightly restricted to economic history. The author touches far too seldom and too briefly upon the social or political causes and consequences of economic events. The book contains an abundance of historical minutiae, such as where the finest linens were made in France in the seventeenth century or how sugar production waxed and waned in various colonies, but it contains very few generalizations and no general argument. Purely descriptive economic analysis may have its place in historiography, and this book is no show more doubt worthwhile for experts in the field, but it is tedious for general readers. show less

A wonderful, encyclopedic work on the history of the Atlantic economies. And Davis means economies with an "s," not economy. He treats the economies of the New World as if they were reflections of the colonial nations that started them. A good work, though it could have footnotes and better maps.