商品詳細

Covering the period between the independence of the United States and the onset of the great German migrations to America, this book examines the first half-century of German-American relations. This was a time characterized by frequent turmoil and rapid change. At the centre of the relationship were the merchants; commercial activity served as the primary locus of change and development, as well as the catalyst and facilitator for other kinds of human interactions, from immigration to intellectual exchanges. On the American side of the equation, merchants were working from the Atlantic harbour towns such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. On the German sides, they were typically located in the two largest old Hanseatic ports: Hamburg, and more frequently, Bremen. The first four chapters of this book explore the political and socio-cultural atmosphere of commerce and diplomacy flowing around and through North Germany and the early United States. What were the mechanics of 18th-century commerce? Who were the businessmen who initiated this commerce, and what was their role in the larger spheres of politics, international relations and the spreading of culture? The second half of the book comprises four chapters which proceed roughly chronologically from the American Revolution through the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, until the onset of Prussian economic domination in Germany. It concludes with the establishment of formal, full-time Prussian-American diplomatic relations and with the victory of the Prussian Zollverein across most of Germany.