Before the American Revolution, tobacco was the most valuable export of British North America and, after sugar, the most valuable British import. This study explores the links between the agrarian economy of 17th and 18th century and the consumers of their tobacco in the British Isles.
'Of all the writings on the subject..the works of Jacob M. Price detailing the intricacies of the commercial connections between London, Glasgow, and the colonial Chesapeake clearly stand above the pile as this compendium of his essays attests...Scholars of the colonial economy and devotees of the Chesapeake School will find this handy collection useful...Price's stature as one of the pioneers of United States economic history has long been assured, and this anthology would grace any historian's bookshelf.' The Historian, Vol. 60, No. 3 regarding all three volumes by Price: 'All the essays in these three volumes bear the badge of Price's scholarship. The research behind them is meticulous- broad in scope, profound in depth, complete...In these three volumes we have selections from the beginnings of a life's work, a report from the first half-century, a hint of what is yet to come. They constitute a landmark of scholarship produced by the model scholar..' Economic History Review, Vol. LI 'The most distinguished historian of early modern British imperial overseas trade of this or any earlier generation, Jacob. M. Price has long been known as a historical essayist par excellence. Distinguished by their solidarity, careful and imaginative analysis of data, precision of argument, attention to context, and lucid prose style, his essays have served two generations of early modern British overseas historians as a model of what an essay should be and how it can shed new light upon a field. For that reason, as well as because of the defining importance of many of the essays in several areas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century imperial history, these three volumes of Price's collected essays are an especially welcome addition to the proliferating literature on the early modern British world...one has to applaud the press for undertaking a project of this scope and scholarly importance.' The International History Review, Vol. XXI, No. 1
