Ragsdale provides the first well detailed synthesis of the development of economic dependence on Great Britain in a colony/state of the Upper South. . . . His interpretations are fresh and interesting. Among Ragsdale's major contributions is the explicit connection he makes between economic, political, and social ideas and practices, and his linkage of the process of transformation with race-based ... Read morechattel slavery.
Sylvia R. Frey, Tulane University A Planters' Republic persuasively demonstrates that Washington, Jefferson, Madison and fellow Virginians concieved of liberty in both economic and political terms. This important, gracefully written account of Virginians' uneasy commercial relationship with the mother country enlarges our understanding of the coming of the Revolution in Great Britain's most valued mainland colony. Ragsdale also deftly shows how Virginians' efforts to shape an independent, prosperous state economy after 1776 led ultimately to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Jean B. Lee, University of Wisconsin Show Less