The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence

by T.H. Breen

The Marketplace of Revolution offers a boldly innovative interpretation of the mobilization of ordinary Americans on the eve of independence. Breen explores how colonists who came from very different ethnic and religious backgrounds managed to overcome difference and create a common cause capable of galvanizing resistance. In a richly interdisciplinary narrative that weaves insights into a changing material culture with analysis of popular political protests, Breen shows how virtual strangers managed to communicate a sense of trust that effectively united men and women long before they had established a nation of their own.
The Marketplace of Revolution argues that the colonists' shared experience as consumers in a new imperial economy afforded them the cultural resources that they needed to develop a radical strategy of political protest--the consumer boycott. Never before had a mass political movement organized itself around disruption of the marketplace. As Breen demonstrates, often through anecdotes about obscure Americans, communal rituals of shared sacrifice provided an effective means to educate and energize a dispersed populace. The boycott movement--the signature of American resistance--invited colonists traditionally excluded from formal political processes to voice their opinions about liberty and rights within a revolutionary marketplace, an open, raucous public forum that defined itself around subscription lists passed door-to-door, voluntary associations, street protests, destruction of imported British goods, and incendiary newspaper exchanges. Within these exchanges was born a new
form of politics in which ordinary man and women--precisely the people most often overlooked in traditional accounts of revolution--experienced an exhilarating surge of empowerment.
Breen recreates an "empire of goods" that transformed everyday life during the mid-eighteenth century. Imported manufactured items flooded into the homes of colonists from New Hampshire to Georgia. The Marketplace of Revolution explains how at a moment of political crisis Americans gave political meaning to the pursuit of happiness and learned how to make goods speak to power.

Genres: History, American Revolution, American History, Nonfiction, Economics, Politics, American Revolutionary War

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Timothy H. Breen is the William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University. He is also the founding director of the Kaplan Humanities Center and the Nicholas D. Chabraja Center for Historical Studies at Northwestern. Breen is a specialist on the American Revolution; he studies the history of early America with a special interest in political thought, material culture, and cultural anthropology.

Breen received his Ph.D in history from Yale University. He also holds an honorary MA from Oxford University. In addition to the appointment at Northwestern University, he has taught at Cambridge University (as the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions), at Oxford University (as the Harmsworth Professor of American History), and at University of Chicago, Yale University, and California Institute of Technology. He is an honorary fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has also enjoyed research support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Humboldt Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the Mellon Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. An essay he published on the end of slavery in Massachusetts became the basis for a full-length opera that was produced in Chicago. He has written for the New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, American Scholar, the New York Times, and the London Review of Books.

Reviews

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book because it was a very original interpretation of the causes of the American Revolution. Breen argued that consumerism created unity among revolutionaries from all 13 colonies because it gave them a common language through which they could identify with one another. Breen's explanations of the construction of a consumer culture revolving around British goods gives powerful new meaning to the colonists' reaction to the Stamp Act and the subsequent British duties on imported goods. Essentially, consumerism empowered the People.

I think the books biggest problem is that it created a false sense of grand unanimity among Colonists. Breen examined some loyalists, but he treated them more as individuals who merely had to be shown what was best for them before they would come around to thinking properly. We know that loyalists were, in fact, a majority in the 13 colonies, so Breen fails to adequately portray this reality.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would say this book was one of the most influential books for me, in terms of changing how i look at history. Whatever the weaknesses of his argument, Breen presents an intriguing new way to look at the history of America. His thesis and arguments that the American revolution was caused through the marketplace really fascinated me. I had NEVER thought of the marketplace or consumerism as influential in political happenings. How could the market possibly influence such a great political event such as the revolution? Through small, seemingly unrelated, events. Through an unorthodox approach, Breen forces us all to see that it is the little things that count when examining how big events came to be.

[Quinn Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

very good argument and an enlightening topic, but there is no need for 300+ pages to make an argument that can be made (and is) in the first chapter

[Dan Gorman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty solid work of new social history. Breen doesn't buy into teleology and inevitable descriptions of the American Revolution (e.g., Gordon Wood, Jack Greene), yet Breen does a good job showing that the mercantilist system unfairly benefitted Great Britain at the colonials' expense. He does a laudable job reconstructing the colonial economy and shows how the colonists grew more empowered through capitalist choices. Breen is also to be commended for making women such a major part of his narrative.

But there are some serious problems with the book. His talk of "freedom of choice" (Milton Friedman's approximate phrase) and his exuberance over capitalism reveals that, even if he doesn't see the Revolution as teleological, he certainly sees America as an exceptional nation. Hence, his upholding of capitalism seems a bit too neo-con/Milton Friedman, at least for this reviewer's taste, and the argument isn't as revisionist as Breen thinks. The first half also has a lot of drift, there's no discussion of the consumer marketplace during the Revolutionary War, and the whole argument describing freedom of choice pretty much only applies to white Protestants. If you were an African American slave, capitalism would have been pretty awful.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 things:
This book is great if you're interested in commercial patterns and methods of resistance like boycotts. If not, you may only find bits of gold along the way that are never fully explored. Breen would make a point about the marketplace giving political power to women then not really go into it. I found this incredibly frustrating because these points DID interest me.

The other thing? I expected to find more object studies because of Breen's initial mention of material cultural artifacts. Nope. He goes for travel journals and product catelogues. Not a bad route, just not what I expected.

[Miroslaw Aleksander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed and well-written, The Marketplace of the Revolution discussed how consumer politics influenced the development of American independence, particularly after the Seven Year War, when Americans enjoyed a period of financial well-being (following the saying that 'war is good for business') which fueled the British belief that the colonists were wealthier than the people of England. The book focuses on consumer goods, particularly imports from Great Britain, and what was their value in the colonies, social as well as financial. Breen also makes note of the colonist's strife over consumer goods (e.g.: higher classes wanting to bar lower classes from purchasing goods that were traditionally connected to them).

Then the author discusses how, amidst rising taxation, Americans turned consumer goods into symbolic support for freedom and finally independence by boycotting British goods by legislation, subscription lists and peer-pressure (and occasional tarring and feathering) for the sake of those made in America, which at times was problematic, as their quality often was inferior. Furthermore, not many colonists wanted to produce such goods, as many came to the colonies to become agrarian landowners.

The final chapter is somewhat cumbersome. Not bad, not unsubstantiated, and filled with some interesting information I nonetheless found it somewhat over-detailed and repetitive.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was very dry and hard to get through but had a lot of good insight into what builds a movement and what can galvanize people to act. Despite talking about the dawn of the American Revolution many of its topics can apply to trends today - the power of the purse, buying local, striving to provide the best for guests. It definitely captures a part of the Revolution story even while going against a lot of our own myth building about the Revolution. My biggest takeaway - the US has always had a debt problem. In an interesting twist the book got better as it went along as the tide turned toward Revolution.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Breen's premise well-enough. This book provided a fascinating and interesting take on the build-up to American independence. However, the dense language and lengthy examples, I feel, bogged the reader down. His thesis was certainly clear enough, if not overstated, to the point that I felt as if I had been beaten over the head with it by the time I finished the book. Nonetheless, still it remains a refreshing interpretaion of American consumer politics and the dawn of the revolution.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting thesis although after I discussed this book in class I realized it's a little vague in it's claims. It's basically claiming that the way colonists were able to unite in the lead up to the American revolution is that they found similarities in their consumer culture and a choice of goods.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really different book about the American Revolution focusing on the economics and trade that affected colonials towards revolution. It was a different take on the whole deal and one that I really enjoyed learning more about. It was really interesting to see just how much our economic marketplace really effects the bigger issues and connects us worldwide.

[Mike]

I got to see T.H. Breen's presentation to another Teaching American History group, and was fascinated by his take on the origins of the American Revolution- consumer goods and market behavior were hugely important, but not just in a materialist sense... I'm looking forward to this alongside Truxes' "Defying Empire."

[Tristan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book examines the dilemma of the revolutionary period. How did 13 colonies of various backgrounds and cultures unite against the British? Breen argues that they united over their common consumption of British goods, and that resistance came in the form of boycotts. Really well researched and even funny at times. Though the length really overstays its welcome.

[AnnaBella · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is traumatic for me. Read it for my American consumerism class and it’s haunted me through undergrad and grad school. Everyone seems to like it??? I am confused??? Are they reading the same book as me???

WHAT BOOK ABOUT THE CONSUMER MARKET IN EARLY AMERICA DOESN’T MENTION SLAVERY?! I can’t.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

meh. the pursuit of happiness = spend money how ever one pleases to be comfortable and pleasured. Not really a new idea, though he claims to be the first to see the importance in the relationship between comsumer spending and the unification of the colonists.

[AskHistorians]

The author of this book, unlike Wood, places a much greater emphasis on economics, arguing that the colonial rebellion began and became united as a group of economic consumers battling against unjust economic exploitation.

[John Beeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved that Breen was inspired by a teacup to write this book. Brilliantly charted.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

American revolution as consumer movement? NICE!

[Craig Bolton]

The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence by T. H. Breen (2005)

[Jonah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wrote a review essay for Revolutionary History on this book. Pretty fascinating economic/social history of early consumer politics.

[Soxfan3376 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thought provoking take in the origin of te American revolution.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting point of view of how the colonists fully united for independence, but very disorganized writing.

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent source of information on the economic forces at work in the colonial era, but it is a part of the story, not the entire story.

[Caitlin Walker]

Surprisingly interesting book about american revolution. Claims colonists united under a consumer identity.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good argument that the Colonies had economic connections prior to, and during, the Revolution. Definitely an academic book.

[Jeremy Canipe · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this now-classic book, Professor T.H. Breen argues that the colonists of British North America developed a shared sense of identity - an imagined community - across the lines of geography and class - partly because of their common participation in the purchase of imported English consumer goods in the decades after 1740.

Dr. Breen stated that he is not discounting the voiced political theories of the American Revolution - such as the classic call for no taxation without representation. Instead, he explores how this newly developed "empire of goods" - created by consumer responsiveness, newly available credit, and lowered prices that allowed even free colonists of modest means to buy tea and other imported consumer goods - allowed strangers in colonies with rather separate histories - to develop a common identity and trust in each other in the face of post-1763 British trade regulation and taxes that suggested an exploitation of the colonists by the English government.

In this context, Breen argues, the colonists became convinced that, not only were their English rights not being respected - but they also became convinced that the British economy was dependent upon their continuing purchase of these imported British goods. In this situation, the colonists were able to stage the first consumer boycotts as a matter of political protest.

Interestingly, noted Breen, this plan of action allowed people who had no effective voice in formal colonial politics, such as women and men with no property - to depict and to understand themselves as virtuous political actors.

There were some side notes such as the realization that increased access to consumer goods allowed many poorer colonists to buy and to wear clothing and use nicer goods at home - such as dishes and decorations - that broke traditional understandings of proper class distinctions.

As Breen looked at the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts, he asserts that this developed sense of consumer politics and an emergent American identity across colonial borders should be viewed as explaining why the residents of the other eventually-rebelling colonies sprang to the defense of Boston and Massachusetts.

I am not certain that Professor Breen's thesis is convincing. I do think it is possible that this shared sense of exploitation helped people in the various colonies see themselves as all in the same boat. One aspect that is mentioned but perhaps not developed deeply enough is the role of newspapers in informing people across the colonies of their common circumstances. But, in any event, this is a thought-provoking book and worth your time to read.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book pushes back against traditional framings of the American revolution as being rooted in a diffuse kind of political ideology by grounding colonial resistance in the marketplace itself, particularly in the proliferation of British goods among the American colonial public. Breen argues that it was through the overt politicization of consumption--of fabrics, metals, and tea--that American colonists came to find themselves aligned in attitudes of political resistance. He does an amazing job first of charting how and through what channels Americans consumed, what they consumed, what that consumption meant to them in the formation of American identity, and how resistance to those consumption patterns became politicized in the onslaught of British taxation initiatives. He also does a tremendous job showing how British legislators perceived the American consumer as essential to their own imperial project--an interesting teasing out in global capitalist logic, in that we always think of the moment of the Revolution as one in which American producers threatened the British economy. Instead, if we think of them as consumers, and therein holding a much greater political power, how does it change the way we think of colonial exchange and the necessity of the colony as sustaining the British economy through consumption?

Breen does admirable work in showing how "ordinary" Americans became consumers, and then politicized non-consumers, and in particular pays close attention to women as key actors (especially in how their fashions and preferences for European silks made them exemplary performers of class distinction). He also does important work in showing how, in the era PRIOR to the Tea Party, the particular modes of resisting through non-importation, and then non-consumption, were disseminated through major newspapers and then enacted through public scrutiny of consumer choice. It is frustrating that he does not pay closer attention to how these behaviors might have varied or conflicted according to region--there is scant attention to how the Southern colonies conceived of consumption differently than the North, and as such there is little to no discussion of slavery in the early Republic. Nevertheless, as a key text that frames consumption as a political action, this is a valuable way to think about systems of exchange and resistance in early America.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty significantly flawed book, though well-written, but which contributed a major theme of to our understanding of the revolution: consumer practice was important in establishing common identities and in enacting resistance. but Breen mostly makes consumer choice out to be a liberating activity for colonists (even though he is skeptical about it’s sublimity) and doesn’t much consider how that consumer choice was enabled by slave labor. He actually explicitly says economic historians have focused too much on production, and as a result misses the coercion embedded in the provincial pre-Revolution economy

[Loren Picard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the history book that complements all the American history you have ever been exposed to. The book answers the simple question: When, and under what circumstances, did the colonists figure out they were not transplanted Englishmen, but colonists who were seen by the mother country as a source of raw materials and tax revenue. In other words, how did all the disparate types of people across the colonies come together, to build a shared political foundation, to even contemplate declaring independence? The book's title gives a hint to the answer.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

T.H. Breen’s book, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, interprets political mobilization on the eve of the American Revolution in the context of a burgeoning consumer culture. He does not deny the role of ideology and the rhetoric of revolutionary leaders; rather he argues that Americans learned the language of freedom, liberty, and rights by connecting their personal choices in the marketplace with resistance to British oppression. The British colonists were able to mobilize as Americans in 1774 because their of previous experiences with non-importation, boycotts, and non-consumption of British goods.

Breen develops the theme of political participation through choice in the marketplace by documenting the various strategies the colonists used to enforce the proper buying behavior in each successive crisis leading up to the Revolution. He argues that the American Revolution could not occur until the colonists established an imagined community where people separated by distance, culture, class, and gender, could trust each other to hold the line against the British: “In other words, what was missing from the equation in 1765 was a structure of political mobilization that would sustain solidarity among virtual strangers separated by bad roads and historical experience” (p. 220). That structure was slowly built over time as colonists developed more sophisticated strategies for preserving their liberties and exercising their rights. Breen describes the motive, the method, and the results of a number of strategies: self-control, non-importation agreements, boycotts, and non-consumption agreements.

According to Breen, the colonists wanted “the freedom and opportunity to earn the money they needed” (p. 206) to pay whatever manufactures pleased them. Yet during the economic downturn between the end of the Seven Years War and 1764, the colonists started to realize that their buying habits were causing them to fall into greater and greater debt to England. Some colonial newspapers started to publish articles connecting excessive debt with slavery, and calling on individual colonists to curb their spending habits for the common good. The colonists, especially the women in charge of the household budget, were admonished to police themselves. Breen calls this “the moment during which imported manufactures took what might be called a political turn” (p. 207), where Americans realized that consumer sacrifice would help preserve their basic rights and liberties.

After Parliament passed the Stamp Act, the connection between buying decisions and political action became stronger. The colonists perceived the Stamp Act as an instance of taxation without representation, and a direct attack on their liberty and property. In response to pressure from citizens, and to prevent colonists from making no purchases at all, groups of merchants signed non-importation agreements in which they pledged to cancel all orders for British manufactures until the Stamp Act was repealed. The problem with the non-importation agreements was enforcement. The merchants, after all, were acting against their own self-interest. How do you make sure that all merchants are upholding their agreements? Breen argues that even though this effort failed, the extra-legal means of enforcing compliance that were established (newspaper reports, public shaming) set up the foundation for a broader mobilization of ordinary colonists (p.228).

After the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767, the colonist combined non-importation agreements with boycotts of specifically enumerated items. All patriotic men and women were expected to adhere to the lists. The boycott participants again turned to extra-legal means of policing compliance: they formed oversight committees that recorded the names of those caught with proscribed items, inspected stores to ensure nothing was missing, and shamed buyers and sellers who traded in restricted items. Most importantly to Breen’s thesis, the boycotts fostered a new sense of unity amongst the colonists:
[A]s the protest spread from colony to colony, from city to city, issues related to cooperation across vast distances forced them to imagine themselves in broader, more inclusive terms than they had ever done before, as “Americans,” as members of an ill-defined “union,” or as spokesmen for a “continent” (p. 244).

In May 1773, the Parliament passed the Tea Act. According to Breen, “Americans now almost instinctively moved from demands for non-importation to appeals for non-consumption” a shift that forced people to “take personal responsibility for their own political destiny” (p. 298). After the Intolerable Acts closed Boston Harbor in 1774, Americans stood firm with Boston in resisting British oppression. Breen argues that the delegates to First Continental Congress could agree to a program of non-importation, non-consumption and non-exportation because it was a natural extension of the successful consumer strategies employed by the colonists for more than two decades (p. 325).

Breen presents a novel, engaging, and convincing argument that political mobilization was defined and supported by a consumer experience in a marketplace of goods. He effectively used primary sources to paint a picture Americans enthusiastically participating in popular movements to uphold their liberties, rights, and freedom to choose in the face of British oppression.

[Erika]

This book still has great points, but doesn't age as well as I had expected. The stuff about women seems really tacked on, and there are no mention of non-white people. Also, I don't think we need to know about every single pamphlet involving consumption. Still, an important work.