Credit Nation

Property Laws and Institutions in Early America

Claire Priest

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Hardback

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English

Princeton University Press
12 April 2021

History of the Americas; Colonialism & imperialism; Economic history; Property & real estate; Property law

Series: The Princeton Economic History of the Western World

How American colonists laid the foundations of American capitalism with an economy built on creditEven before the United States became a country, laws prioritizing access to credit set colonial America apart from the rest of the world. Credit Nation examines how the drive to expand credit shaped property laws and legal institutions in the colonial and founding eras of the republic.

In this major new history of early America, Claire Priest describes how the British Parliament departed from the customary ways that English law protected land and inheritance, enacting laws for the colonies that privileged creditors by defining land and slaves as commodities available to satisfy debts. Colonial governments, in turn, created local legal institutions that enabled people to further leverage their assets to obtain credit. Priest shows how loans backed with slaves as property fueled slavery from the colonial era through the Civil War, and that increased access to credit was key to the explosive growth of capitalism in nineteenth-century America.

Credit Nation presents a new vision of American economic history, one where credit markets and liquidity were prioritized from the outset, where property rights and slaves became commodities for creditors' claims, and where legal institutions played a critical role in the Stamp Act crisis and other political episodes of the founding period.

By: Claire Priest
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 155mm,
ISBN: 9780691158761
ISBN 10: 0691158762
Series: The Princeton Economic History of the Western World
Pages: 248
Publication Date: 12 April 2021
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Claire Priest is the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Twitter @priest_claire

Reviews for Credit Nation: Property Laws and Institutions in Early America

"""An informative and deeply researched book that explores how property law influenced the development of the English colonies and, ultimately, the United States.""---Aaron L. Chin, H-Early-America"