New World Economies: The Growth of the Thirteen Colonies and Early Canada examines the economic development of both the original American colonies and early French Canada, looking at the impact of changing prices, capital flows, and shifts in demand. It is a companion volume to Marc Egnal's well-regarded earlier book, Divergent Paths, which emphasized the influence of culture and institutions upon growth. New World Economies studies transatlantic ties and sets forth a rigorous model to explain the pattern of growth. It features seventeen tables and more than one hundred graphs, many of which are based on original data. Several appendices present these valuable new statistics. Egnal's core argument is that the pace of economic development in the colonies reflected the rate of growth in the mother country. In advancing this central notion, the book employs a theoretical foundation that builds upon, and then moves beyond, the traditional "staple thesis." Thoroughly documented and rich in quantitative data, this study traces the trajectory of economic growth by region and establishes a clear connection between colonial and European rates of growth. Given its clear arguments, its rich data, and its persuasive overall method, New World Economies will interest scholars and students of economic history, of American and French-Canadian colonial culture, and of transatlantic relations during the eighteenth century.

Marc Egnal is Professor of History at York University. He is the author of Divergent Paths: How Culture and Institutions Have Shaped North American Growth; New World Economies: The Growth of the Thirteen Colonies and Early Canada; and Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War.

Marc Egnal's profile page

"New World Economics is unusually interesting, challenging, and absorbingly well-written. Its elaborately comparative structure--England and France; the thirteen colonies and Quebec; the North, the Upper South, and the Lower South--gives the reader command over an immense palette." --Agricultural History

"Drawing upon numerous quantitative and non-quantitative sources, Marc Egnal has presented an important analysis of the economic development in the thirteen colonies of British North America and in French Canada in the period before the American Revolution. With its detailed examination of major issues, New World Economies joins Egnal's recent Divergent Paths as essential reading for understanding the causes and consequences of economic changes and their implications for broader political and cultural questions."--Stanley L. Engerman, University of Rochester

"We should applaud Egnal's effort to build a model that simultaneously compares New World regions and incorporates them into the transatlantic economy."--Journal of Southern History

"A bright light on the darkest era of American economic history. This is an important and useful book, for its refinement of the existing theoretical frame, its wealth of empirical data, its breath of context, and especially for its study of synchronic change in the Atlantic world of the eighteenth century. Marc Egnal is the master of this subject. We have much to learn from him."--David Hackett Fischer, Brandeis University

"New World Economies is a valuable addition to the body of literature about economic development in eighteenth-century North America, and a much-needed comparative study of the British and French colonies. The book is superbly written and contains a valuable array of charts, tables, and new time series on prices of specific exports and imports. It will be the starting point for any future research on the economic development of the British and French colonies in the eighteenth century."--Thomas Weiss, University of Kansas

"This book provides a model for what should be a major project of the next decade; a synthesis of the economic history of the early modern Atlantic world...Egnal has added intelligent legends that relate them to his account."--The Journal of American History