About the Book:In recent years, scholars in a number of disciplines have focused their attention on understanding the early American economy. The result has been an outpouring of scholarship, some of it dramatically revising older methodologies and findings, and some of it charting entirely new territorynew subjects, new places, and new arenas of study that might not have been considered economic in the past.The Economy of Early America enters this resurgent discussion of the early American economy by showcasing the work of leading scholars who represent a spectrum of historiographical and methodological viewpoints. Contributors include David Hancock, Russell Menard, Lorena Walsh, Christopher Tomlins, David Waldstreicher, Terry Bouton, Brooke Hunter, Daniel Dupre, John Majewski, Donna Rilling, and Seth Rockman, as well as Cathy Matson.Table of Contents: ContentsPreface1.A House of Many Mansions: Some Thoughts on the Field of Economic HistoryCathy Matson2.Rethinking The Economy of British AmericaDavid Hancock3.Colonial Americas Mestizo AgricultureRussell R. Menard4.Peopling, Producing, and Consuming in EarlyBritish AmericaLorena S. Walsh5.Indentured Servitude in Perspective: European Migration into North America and the Composition of the Early American Labor Force, 16001775Christopher Tomlins6.Capitalism, Slavery, and Benjamin Franklins American RevolutionDavid Waldstreicher7.Moneyless in Pennsylvania: Privatization and the Depression of the 1780sTerry Bouton8.Creative Destruction: The Forgotten Legacy of the Hessian FlyBrooke Hunter9.The Panic of 1819 and the Political Economy of SectionalismDaniel S. Dupre10.Toward a Social History of the Corporation: Shareholding in Pennsylvania, 18001840John Majewski11.Small-Producer Capitalism in Early National PhiladelphiaDonna J. Rilling12.The Unfree Origins of American CapitalismSeth RockmanList of contributorsIndex