This innovative book examines how, between 1640 and 1815, the Portuguese Madeira wine trade shaped the Atlantic world and American society. David Hancock painstakingly reconstructs the lives of produ
"The loss of America was a stunning and unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders in Britain must have been t
As Britain and France became more powerful during the eighteenth century, small states such as Geneva could no longer stand militarily against these commercial monarchies. Furthermore, many Genevans f
In the Enlightenment it was often argued that moral conduct, rather than adherence to theological doctrine, was the true measure of religious belief. Thomas Ahnert argues that this “enlightened” empha
An eye-opening biography of a woman at the intersection of three distinct cultures in colonial America Born and raised in a New England garrison town, Esther Wheelwright (1696–1780) was captured
Scholars of British America generally conclude that the early eighteenth-century Anglo-American empire was commercial in economics, liberal in politics, and parochial in policy, somnambulant in an era
A sophisticated analysis of changing views of political virtue in the 18th century and the origins of the modern dilemma over probity and suitability for high public office
An eye-opening, meticulously researched new perspective on the influences that shaped the Founders as well as the nation's founding document From one election cycle to the next, a defining questio
A clothier and a deeply religious man, Joseph Ryder faithfully kept a diary from 1733 until his death, two and a half million words later, in 1768. Recently rediscovered and brilliantly interpreted by
Often dismissed as ineffective, indolent, and dominated by his second wife, Philip V of Spain (1700–1746), the first Bourbon king, was in fact the greatest threat to peace in Europe during his reign.
After the end of the War of Austrian Succession in 1748, thousands of unemployed and sometimes unemployable soldiers and seamen found themselves on the streets of London ready to roister the town and
"Enlightenment's Frontier is the first book to investigate the environmental roots of the Scottish Enlightenment. What was the place of the natural world in Adam Smith's famous defense of free trade?
