From Dependency to Independence

In a sweeping synthesis of a crucial period of American history, From Dependency to Independence starts with the "problem" of New England's economic development. As a struggling outpost of a powerful commercial empire, colonial New England grappled with problems familiar to modern developing societies: a lack of capital and managerial skills, a nonexistent infrastructure, and a domestic economy that failed to meet the inhabitants' needs or to generate exports.Yet, less than a century and a half later, New England staged the war for political independence and the industrial revolution. How and why did this transformation occur Marshaling an enormous array of research data, Margaret Ellen Newell demonstrates that colonial New England's economic development and its leadership role in these two American revolutions were interrelated.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations and Maps -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Problem of Economic Development in Colonial New England -- Part I. Political Economy, Culture, and Development in the Seventeenth Century -- Chapter 1. A Second England: English Background and Plans for Settlement -- Chapter 2. Regulation in the Wilderness -- Chapter 3. The Promotional State -- Chapter 4. Emulation of Empire -- Chapter 5. Producers and Consumers -- Part II. Economy and Ideology in Provincial New England -- Chapter 6. The Idea of Money in Seventeenth-Century England and America -- Chapter 7. Paper Money and Public Policy, 16901714 -- Chapter 8. A Poor Dependent State: The Argument for Retrenchment -- Chapter 9. The Virtues of the Internal Economy -- Chapter 10. The Political Culture of Paper Money -- Chapter 11. From the Land Bank to the Currency Act -- Part III. The Political Economy of Revolution -- Chapter 12. Development at Mid-Century -- Chapter 13. The Imperial Crisis -- Chapter 14. The Consequences of Independence -- Epilogue: The Meaning of Development in New England -- Index