Merchants and Revolution details the transformation of English commerce in the century after 1550, examining in particular the activities of London’s merchant community during the early Stuart period. In a major reinterpretation of long-term commercial change, Robert Brenner explains the factors behind the opening of long-distance commerce to the south and east, describing how the great City merchants wielded power to exploit emerging business opportunities, and he profiles the new colonial traders, who became the chief architects of the Commonwealth’s dynamic commercial policy.

“Constantly provocative, [a] giant of a book.” — Times Literary Supplement

“If Brenner’s work suggests new beginnings, its primary focus is on some of the most venerable debates in British historiography.“— Reviews in American History

“Brenner has made more discoveries of importance about the period than any of his contemporaries.” — London Review of Books

Robert Brenner is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at UCLA. His The Boom and the Bubble: The US Economy Today is also published by Verso.
Publication
Cloth: August 2001
Paper: August 2003

750 pages

Paper
1 85984 333 6
£15 / US$22 / CAN$33