Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York Book

This book looks at why American merchants in New York traded with the French during the Seven Years' War. For one, Americans had always engaged in smuggling, and war increased the opportunity to make money in certain avenues. NY merchants justified their actions by saying that their trade increased exports, and thus that money went into the coffers of the British rather than letting neutral nations reap all the profits. This book points to the importance of the pre-Sugar/Stamp tax: the Flour Act of 1757, which forbade colonists from exporting flour, while Britain and Ireland were exempted. This made colonists feel like second-class citizens, a feeling that would boil over after the war into violence.

This is a great book for seeing how the British Empire worked. American merchants supported the war, but felt that being British meant being able to trade with whoever they wanted (unlike NE in the War of 1812, who didn't support the war). By the 18th century, two visions of the Atlantic World existed: 1) Imperial-lines on a map to be controlled 2) provincial-entangled networks of trade. Bound to clash.