The Atlantic Economy and Colonial Maryland's Eastern Shore

Book excerpt: In the eighteenth century, cash grains were introduced on Maryland's Eastern Shore and eventually replaced tobacco as market crops. What factors brought about this shift from tobacco production to diversified agriculture, and what were its effects on the people living there? This book charts the early social and economic history of the Eastern Shore, focusing on the ways in which Atlantic commerce shaped the lives of English settlers between 1620 and 1776. Professor Clemens is concerned with the relationship between changes in society brought about by local economic circumstances and those created by international market conditions. He also points out the distinctive balance between commercial agriculture and self-sufficiency farming that was achieved on the Eastern Shore. Offering a new perspective on early American history, his book not only depicts the growth of a particular region in colonial America but places that growth in the broader context of both the Atlantic market economy and the economies of other English New World settlements.