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Podcast: New Books in Economic and Business History
Episode: Susan Gaunt Stearns. "Empire of Commerce: The Closing of the Mississippi and the Opening of Atlantic Trade" (U Virginia Press, 2024)
Description: Shortly after the ratification of the US Constitution in 1789, twenty-two-year-old Andrew Jackson pledged his allegiance to the king of Spain. Prior to the Louisiana Purchase, imperial control of the North American continent remained an open question. Spain controlled the Mississippi River, closing it to American trade in 1784, and western men on the make like Jackson had to navigate the overlapping economic and political forces at work with ruthless pragmatism.In Empire of Commerce: The Closing of the Mississippi and the Opening of Atlantic Trade (University of Virginia Press, 2024), Dr. Susan Gaunt Stearns takes readers back to a ti...