Author: Caroline Frank
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226260283
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
With the ever-expanding presence of China in the global economy, Americans more and more look east for goods and trade. But as Caroline Frank reveals, this is not a new development. China loomed as large in the minds—and account books—of eighteenth-century Americans as it does today. Long before they had achieved independence from Britain and were able to sail to Asia themselves, American mariners, merchants, and consumers were aware of the East Indies and preparing for voyages there. Focusing on the trade and consumption of porcelain, tea, and chinoiserie, Frank shows that colonial Americans saw themselves as part of a world much larger than just Britain and Europe Frank not only recovers the widespread presence of Chinese commodities in early America and the impact of East Indies trade on the nature of American commerce, but also explores the role of the this trade in American state formation. She argues that to understand how Chinese commodities fueled the opening acts of the Revolution, we must consider the power dynamics of the American quest for china—and China—during the colonial period. Filled with fresh and surprising insights, this ambitious study adds new dimensions to the ongoing story of America’s relationship with China.
Objectifying China, Imagining America
Author: Caroline Frank
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226260283
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
With the ever-expanding presence of China in the global economy, Americans more and more look east for goods and trade. But as Caroline Frank reveals, this is not a new development. China loomed as large in the minds—and account books—of eighteenth-century Americans as it does today. Long before they had achieved independence from Britain and were able to sail to Asia themselves, American mariners, merchants, and consumers were aware of the East Indies and preparing for voyages there. Focusing on the trade and consumption of porcelain, tea, and chinoiserie, Frank shows that colonial Americans saw themselves as part of a world much larger than just Britain and Europe Frank not only recovers the widespread presence of Chinese commodities in early America and the impact of East Indies trade on the nature of American commerce, but also explores the role of the this trade in American state formation. She argues that to understand how Chinese commodities fueled the opening acts of the Revolution, we must consider the power dynamics of the American quest for china—and China—during the colonial period. Filled with fresh and surprising insights, this ambitious study adds new dimensions to the ongoing story of America’s relationship with China.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226260283
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
With the ever-expanding presence of China in the global economy, Americans more and more look east for goods and trade. But as Caroline Frank reveals, this is not a new development. China loomed as large in the minds—and account books—of eighteenth-century Americans as it does today. Long before they had achieved independence from Britain and were able to sail to Asia themselves, American mariners, merchants, and consumers were aware of the East Indies and preparing for voyages there. Focusing on the trade and consumption of porcelain, tea, and chinoiserie, Frank shows that colonial Americans saw themselves as part of a world much larger than just Britain and Europe Frank not only recovers the widespread presence of Chinese commodities in early America and the impact of East Indies trade on the nature of American commerce, but also explores the role of the this trade in American state formation. She argues that to understand how Chinese commodities fueled the opening acts of the Revolution, we must consider the power dynamics of the American quest for china—and China—during the colonial period. Filled with fresh and surprising insights, this ambitious study adds new dimensions to the ongoing story of America’s relationship with China.
True Yankees
Author: Dane A. Morrison
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421415437
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363
Book Description
“[A] fascinating perspective on how America’s early voyages of commerce and discovery to the exotic South Seas helped the new nation forge its identity.” —Eric Jay Dolan, bestselling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters Drawing on private journals, letters, ships’ logs, memoirs, and newspaper accounts, True Yankees traces America’s earliest encounters on a global stage through the exhilarating experiences of five Yankee seafarers. Merchant Samuel Shaw spent a decade scouring the marts of China and India for goods that would captivate the imaginations of his countrymen. Mariner Amasa Delano toured much of the Pacific hunting seals. Explorer Edmund Fanning circumnavigated the globe, touching at various Pacific and Indian Ocean ports of call. In 1829, twenty-year-old Harriett Low reluctantly accompanied her merchant uncle and ailing aunt to Macao, where she recorded trenchant observations of expatriate life. And sea captain Robert Bennet Forbes’s last sojourn in Canton coincided with the eruption of the First Opium War. How did these bold voyagers approach and do business with the people in the region, whose physical appearance, practices, and culture seemed so strange? And how did native men and women—not to mention the European traders who were in direct competition with the Americans—regard these upstarts who had fought off British rule? The accounts of these adventurous travelers reveal how they and hundreds of other mariners and expatriates influenced the ways in which Americans defined themselves, thereby creating a genuinely brash national character—the “true Yankee.” Readers who love history and stories of exploration on the high seas will devour this gripping tale. “The book is informative and entertaining, a rare combination. Highly recommended.” —Choice
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421415437
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363
Book Description
“[A] fascinating perspective on how America’s early voyages of commerce and discovery to the exotic South Seas helped the new nation forge its identity.” —Eric Jay Dolan, bestselling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters Drawing on private journals, letters, ships’ logs, memoirs, and newspaper accounts, True Yankees traces America’s earliest encounters on a global stage through the exhilarating experiences of five Yankee seafarers. Merchant Samuel Shaw spent a decade scouring the marts of China and India for goods that would captivate the imaginations of his countrymen. Mariner Amasa Delano toured much of the Pacific hunting seals. Explorer Edmund Fanning circumnavigated the globe, touching at various Pacific and Indian Ocean ports of call. In 1829, twenty-year-old Harriett Low reluctantly accompanied her merchant uncle and ailing aunt to Macao, where she recorded trenchant observations of expatriate life. And sea captain Robert Bennet Forbes’s last sojourn in Canton coincided with the eruption of the First Opium War. How did these bold voyagers approach and do business with the people in the region, whose physical appearance, practices, and culture seemed so strange? And how did native men and women—not to mention the European traders who were in direct competition with the Americans—regard these upstarts who had fought off British rule? The accounts of these adventurous travelers reveal how they and hundreds of other mariners and expatriates influenced the ways in which Americans defined themselves, thereby creating a genuinely brash national character—the “true Yankee.” Readers who love history and stories of exploration on the high seas will devour this gripping tale. “The book is informative and entertaining, a rare combination. Highly recommended.” —Choice
Small Things in the Eighteenth Century
Author: Chloe Wigston Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108999069
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
Offering an intimate history of how small things were used, handled, and worn, this collection shows how objects such as mugs and handkerchiefs were entangled with quotidian practices and rituals of bodily care. Small things, from tiny books to ceramic trinkets and toothpick cases, could delight and entertain, generating tactile pleasures for users while at the same time signalling the limits of the body's adeptness or the hand's dexterity. Simultaneously, the volume explores the striking mobility of small things: how fans, coins, rings, and pottery could, for instance, carry political, philosophical, and cultural concepts into circumscribed spaces. From the decorative and playful to the useful and performative, such small things as tea caddies, wampum beads, and drawings of ants negotiated larger political, cultural, and scientific shifts as they transported aesthetic and cultural practices across borders, via nationalist imagery, gift exchange, and the movement of global goods.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108999069
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
Offering an intimate history of how small things were used, handled, and worn, this collection shows how objects such as mugs and handkerchiefs were entangled with quotidian practices and rituals of bodily care. Small things, from tiny books to ceramic trinkets and toothpick cases, could delight and entertain, generating tactile pleasures for users while at the same time signalling the limits of the body's adeptness or the hand's dexterity. Simultaneously, the volume explores the striking mobility of small things: how fans, coins, rings, and pottery could, for instance, carry political, philosophical, and cultural concepts into circumscribed spaces. From the decorative and playful to the useful and performative, such small things as tea caddies, wampum beads, and drawings of ants negotiated larger political, cultural, and scientific shifts as they transported aesthetic and cultural practices across borders, via nationalist imagery, gift exchange, and the movement of global goods.
Empire of Tea
Author: Markman Ellis
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780234643
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
Although tea had been known and consumed in China and Japan for centuries, it was only in the seventeenth century that Londoners first began drinking it. Over the next two hundred years, its stimulating properties seduced all of British society, as tea found its way into cottages and castles alike. One of the first truly global commodities and now the world’s most popular drink, tea has also, today, come to epitomize British culture and identity. This impressively detailed book offers a rich cultural history of tea, from its ancient origins in China to its spread around the world. The authors recount tea’s arrival in London and follow its increasing salability and import via the East India Company throughout the eighteenth century, inaugurating the first regular exchange—both commercial and cultural—between China and Britain. They look at European scientists’ struggles to understand tea’s history and medicinal properties, and they recount the ways its delicate flavor and exotic preparation have enchanted poets and artists. Exploring everything from its everyday use in social settings to the political and economic controversies it has stirred—such as the Boston Tea Party and the First Opium War—they offer a multilayered look at what was ultimately an imperial industry, a collusion—and often clash—between the world’s greatest powers over control of a simple beverage that has become an enduring pastime.
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780234643
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
Although tea had been known and consumed in China and Japan for centuries, it was only in the seventeenth century that Londoners first began drinking it. Over the next two hundred years, its stimulating properties seduced all of British society, as tea found its way into cottages and castles alike. One of the first truly global commodities and now the world’s most popular drink, tea has also, today, come to epitomize British culture and identity. This impressively detailed book offers a rich cultural history of tea, from its ancient origins in China to its spread around the world. The authors recount tea’s arrival in London and follow its increasing salability and import via the East India Company throughout the eighteenth century, inaugurating the first regular exchange—both commercial and cultural—between China and Britain. They look at European scientists’ struggles to understand tea’s history and medicinal properties, and they recount the ways its delicate flavor and exotic preparation have enchanted poets and artists. Exploring everything from its everyday use in social settings to the political and economic controversies it has stirred—such as the Boston Tea Party and the First Opium War—they offer a multilayered look at what was ultimately an imperial industry, a collusion—and often clash—between the world’s greatest powers over control of a simple beverage that has become an enduring pastime.
Transoceanic America
Author: Michelle Burnham
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198840896
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
This volume explores the role of the Pacific Ocean in the American Revolution and its influence on early American culture and literature. It studies the transoceanic connections between the Pacific and Atlantic and the political and literary developments that accompanied the period's explosion in global maritime travel.
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198840896
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
This volume explores the role of the Pacific Ocean in the American Revolution and its influence on early American culture and literature. It studies the transoceanic connections between the Pacific and Atlantic and the political and literary developments that accompanied the period's explosion in global maritime travel.
Transpacific Engagements
Author: Florina H. Capistrano-Baker
Publisher: Ayala Foundation, Inc., Getty Research Institute, and Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (Max-Planck-Institut)
ISBN: 6218028224
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, competing European empires, notably Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, and others vied for commercial and political control of transoceanic networks, particularly the transpacific routes between Asia and the Americas. The essays in Transpacific Engagements: Trade, Translation, and Visual Culture of Entangled Empires (1565–1898) address the resulting cultural and artistic exchanges with an emphasis on both the Spanish and American enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region. The essays are grouped into three parts entitled “Entangled Empires,” “Empires and Translations,” and “Empires and Trade.” A common thread in the diverse perspectives presented here is the importance of transpacific engagements to the global connections of the sixteenth century and beyond. While the focus is on the specific connection between the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas through the Philippines, we see how other parts of the world, notably South and Southeast Asia and Europe, were also participants impacted by these transpacific linkages. The goal is to convey the complexity of entangled networks of commercial, political, and religious interests that complicate the Spanish enterprise in the Pacific. Commercial ventures into Canton and Manila by the early American republic, for example, overlapped with and later replaced the Spanish galleons. East, South, and Southeast Asian polities and dynasties remained powerful players in what were often multilateral, rather than bilateral, exchanges. Contributors to this volume are based in Asia, the Americas, and Europe.
Publisher: Ayala Foundation, Inc., Getty Research Institute, and Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (Max-Planck-Institut)
ISBN: 6218028224
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, competing European empires, notably Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, and others vied for commercial and political control of transoceanic networks, particularly the transpacific routes between Asia and the Americas. The essays in Transpacific Engagements: Trade, Translation, and Visual Culture of Entangled Empires (1565–1898) address the resulting cultural and artistic exchanges with an emphasis on both the Spanish and American enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region. The essays are grouped into three parts entitled “Entangled Empires,” “Empires and Translations,” and “Empires and Trade.” A common thread in the diverse perspectives presented here is the importance of transpacific engagements to the global connections of the sixteenth century and beyond. While the focus is on the specific connection between the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas through the Philippines, we see how other parts of the world, notably South and Southeast Asia and Europe, were also participants impacted by these transpacific linkages. The goal is to convey the complexity of entangled networks of commercial, political, and religious interests that complicate the Spanish enterprise in the Pacific. Commercial ventures into Canton and Manila by the early American republic, for example, overlapped with and later replaced the Spanish galleons. East, South, and Southeast Asian polities and dynasties remained powerful players in what were often multilateral, rather than bilateral, exchanges. Contributors to this volume are based in Asia, the Americas, and Europe.
Actors of Globalization: New York Merchants in Global Trade, 1784-1812
Author: Lisa Sturm-Lind
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900435641X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
The monograph Actors of Globalization portrays a group of New York businessmen engaged in global trade from 1784 to 1812. It follows their businesses around the world and shows how through wit, flexibility, and the help of a worldwide net of business partners the merchants were able to quickly rise to global entrepreneurs speculating on wars, food crises and slave revolts. The ramifications of their commerce were felt at home, where the merchants invested in land and city development, established new financial institutions and contributed to a rising consumer culture. This book brings together global and local history, arguing that private actors played an important role in the economic and social development of the young United States.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900435641X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 202
Book Description
The monograph Actors of Globalization portrays a group of New York businessmen engaged in global trade from 1784 to 1812. It follows their businesses around the world and shows how through wit, flexibility, and the help of a worldwide net of business partners the merchants were able to quickly rise to global entrepreneurs speculating on wars, food crises and slave revolts. The ramifications of their commerce were felt at home, where the merchants invested in land and city development, established new financial institutions and contributed to a rising consumer culture. This book brings together global and local history, arguing that private actors played an important role in the economic and social development of the young United States.
Consumerism and the Emergence of the Middle Class in Colonial America
Author: Christina J. Hodge
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107034396
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
This study examines the emergence of the middle class and consumerism in colonial America.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107034396
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
This study examines the emergence of the middle class and consumerism in colonial America.
Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates
Author: Eric Jay Dolin
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 163149211X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 427
Book Description
With surprising tales of vicious mutineers, imperial riches, and high-seas intrigue, Black Flags, Blue Waters is “rumbustious enough for the adventure-hungry” (Peter Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle). Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age” - spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s - when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. “Deftly blending scholarship and drama” (Richard Zacks), best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them. Through engrossing episodes of roguish glamour and extreme brutality, Dolin depicts the star pirates of this period, among them the towering Blackbeard, the ill-fated Captain Kidd, and sadistic Edward Low, who delighted in torturing his prey. Upending popular misconceptions and cartoonish stereotypes, Black Flags, Blue Waters is a “tour de force history” (Michael Pierce, Midwestern Rewind) of the seafaring outlaws whose raids reflect the precarious nature of American colonial life.
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 163149211X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 427
Book Description
With surprising tales of vicious mutineers, imperial riches, and high-seas intrigue, Black Flags, Blue Waters is “rumbustious enough for the adventure-hungry” (Peter Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle). Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age” - spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s - when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. “Deftly blending scholarship and drama” (Richard Zacks), best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them. Through engrossing episodes of roguish glamour and extreme brutality, Dolin depicts the star pirates of this period, among them the towering Blackbeard, the ill-fated Captain Kidd, and sadistic Edward Low, who delighted in torturing his prey. Upending popular misconceptions and cartoonish stereotypes, Black Flags, Blue Waters is a “tour de force history” (Michael Pierce, Midwestern Rewind) of the seafaring outlaws whose raids reflect the precarious nature of American colonial life.
The Trouble with Tea
Author: Jane T. Merritt
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421421542
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
How tea’s political meaning shaped the culture and economy of the Anglo-American world. Americans imagined tea as central to their revolution. After years of colonial boycotts against the commodity, the Sons of Liberty kindled the fire of independence when they dumped tea in the Boston harbor in 1773. To reject tea as a consumer item and symbol of “taxation without representation” was to reject Great Britain as master of the American economy and government. But tea played a longer and far more complicated role in American economic history than the events at Boston suggest. In The Trouble with Tea, historian Jane T. Merritt explores tea as a central component of eighteenth-century global trade and probes its connections to the politics of consumption. Arguing that tea caused trouble over the course of the eighteenth century in several different ways, Merritt traces the multifaceted impact of that luxury item on British imperial policy, colonial politics, and the financial structure of merchant companies. Merritt challenges the assumption among economic historians that consumer demand drove merchants to provide an ever-increasing supply of goods, thus sparking a consumer revolution in the early eighteenth century. The Trouble with Tea reveals a surprising truth: that concerns about the British political economy, coupled with the corporate machinations of the East India Company, brought an abundance of tea to Britain, causing the company to target North America as a potential market for surplus tea. American consumers only slowly habituated themselves to the beverage, aided by clever marketing and the availability of Caribbean sugar. Indeed, the “revolution” in consumer activity that followed came not from a proliferation of goods, but because the meaning of these goods changed. By the 1750s, British subjects at home and in America increasingly purchased and consumed tea on a daily basis; once thought a luxury, tea had become a necessity. This fascinating look at the unpredictable path of a single commodity will change the way readers look at both tea and the emergence of America. “By tackling a commodity we think we already know in its political, economic, and cultural dimensions, Jane T. Merritt demonstrates that the true story of tea is more complex and global than readers might expect. The Trouble with Tea is a surprising and detailed look at how the long-term moral debates over tea overlapped with and offered a vocabulary for the politicized debates of the Revolutionary War era.” —Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor, author of The Ties that Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America “Long before Bostonians dumped tea overboard, tea was trouble: as trading companies pushed it and consumers sipped it, tea sparked debates over free trade and dangerous luxuries. With her wide-ranging command of global commerce and domestic politics, Merritt tells a vital tale about how tea shaped our world.” —Benjamin L. Carp, author of Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421421542
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
How tea’s political meaning shaped the culture and economy of the Anglo-American world. Americans imagined tea as central to their revolution. After years of colonial boycotts against the commodity, the Sons of Liberty kindled the fire of independence when they dumped tea in the Boston harbor in 1773. To reject tea as a consumer item and symbol of “taxation without representation” was to reject Great Britain as master of the American economy and government. But tea played a longer and far more complicated role in American economic history than the events at Boston suggest. In The Trouble with Tea, historian Jane T. Merritt explores tea as a central component of eighteenth-century global trade and probes its connections to the politics of consumption. Arguing that tea caused trouble over the course of the eighteenth century in several different ways, Merritt traces the multifaceted impact of that luxury item on British imperial policy, colonial politics, and the financial structure of merchant companies. Merritt challenges the assumption among economic historians that consumer demand drove merchants to provide an ever-increasing supply of goods, thus sparking a consumer revolution in the early eighteenth century. The Trouble with Tea reveals a surprising truth: that concerns about the British political economy, coupled with the corporate machinations of the East India Company, brought an abundance of tea to Britain, causing the company to target North America as a potential market for surplus tea. American consumers only slowly habituated themselves to the beverage, aided by clever marketing and the availability of Caribbean sugar. Indeed, the “revolution” in consumer activity that followed came not from a proliferation of goods, but because the meaning of these goods changed. By the 1750s, British subjects at home and in America increasingly purchased and consumed tea on a daily basis; once thought a luxury, tea had become a necessity. This fascinating look at the unpredictable path of a single commodity will change the way readers look at both tea and the emergence of America. “By tackling a commodity we think we already know in its political, economic, and cultural dimensions, Jane T. Merritt demonstrates that the true story of tea is more complex and global than readers might expect. The Trouble with Tea is a surprising and detailed look at how the long-term moral debates over tea overlapped with and offered a vocabulary for the politicized debates of the Revolutionary War era.” —Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor, author of The Ties that Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America “Long before Bostonians dumped tea overboard, tea was trouble: as trading companies pushed it and consumers sipped it, tea sparked debates over free trade and dangerous luxuries. With her wide-ranging command of global commerce and domestic politics, Merritt tells a vital tale about how tea shaped our world.” —Benjamin L. Carp, author of Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America