Book Description
"Using voluminous archives of records pertaining to wine, many of them previously unexamined, Hancock offers a dramatic new perspective on the economic and social development of the Atlantic world by challenging traditional interpretations that have identified states and empires as the driving force behind trade. He demonstrates convincingly just how decentralized the early modern commercial system was, as well as how self-organized, a system that emerged from the actions of market participants working across imperial lines. The networks they formed began as commercial structures, and expanded into social and political systems that were conduits not only for wine but also for ideas about reform, revolution, and independence. Oceans if Wine reframes American history as Atlantic history, placing colonial America and the early republic within an expansive, global context."--BOOK JACKET.
