New World Economies The Growth of the Thirteen Colonies and Early Canada

by Egnal, Marc

• ISBN13: 9780195114829
• ISBN10: 0195114825
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-11-12
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This is a close examination of the economic development of the originalthirteen colonies and French Canada between 1713 and 1775. A companion toEgnal's earlier volume Divergent Paths, a comparative study of value systems andtheir effects on economic development in the British colonies and Canada, thisbook presents a broad range of statistical economic data to complement Egnal'sprevious findings on culture and institutions. Containing more than one hundredfigures and tables, this single volume provides data previously available onlyin many different specialized journals.Egnal's central argument is that the pace of economic development in thecolonies reflected the rate of growth in the parent country. The book'stheoretical foundation is an expanded version of the traditional staple thesis,to which Egnal adds an examination of various regions and the effects of variouslong term changes. Thoroughly documented and rich in quantitative data, thisstudy traces the trajectory of economic growth by region and establishes a clearconnection between colonial and European rates of growth.

Author Biography

Marc Egnal earned his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, and has received Fulbright and Ford Fellowships. He is currently Associate Professor of History at York University, and is also the author of Divergent Paths: How Culture and Institutions Have Shaped North American Growth (Oxford University Press, 1996) and A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the American Revolution (1988).

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	xiii	(6)
List of Abbreviations	xix
1. Introduction: A Brief March through the Thickets of Economic Theory	3	(22)
PART I: THE THIRTEEN COLONIES	25	(96)
2. Two Cycles of British Growth	25	(12)
3. Thirteen Colonies: Portrait of an Aggregate	37	(9)
4. Northern Colonies	46	(32)
5. Upper South	78	(21)
6. Lower South	99	(22)
PART II: CANADA UNDER THE FRENCH REGIME	121	(45)
7. The French Connection	121	(7)
8. A Cycle of Slow Growth in Canada, 1665-1713	128	(14)
9. A Long Swing of Canadian Expansion, 1713-1760	142	(24)
Concluding Note	166	(5)
APPENDICES	171	(18)
A. Philadelphia Textile Prices	171	(6)
B. English Textile Prices	177	(5)
C. Montreal Dry Goods Prices	182	(2)
D. Maritime Insurance, Philadelphia to or from London	184	(2)
E. Antigua Prices	186	(3)
Notes	189	(32)
Index	221