Underwriters of the United States - (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American Histo) by Hannah Farber (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Unassuming but formidable, American maritime insurers used their position at the pinnacle of global trade to shape the new nation. The international information they gathered and the capital they generated enabled them to play central roles in state building and economic development. Deeply and imaginatively researched, Underwriters of the United States uses marine insurers to reveal a startlingly original story of risk, money, and power in the founding era"--

Book Synopsis

Unassuming but formidable, American maritime insurers used their position at the pinnacle of global trade to shape the new nation. The international information they gathered and the capital they generated enabled them to play central roles in state building and economic development. During the Revolution, they helped the U.S. negotiate foreign loans, sell state debts, and establish a single national bank. Afterward, they increased their influence by lending money to the federal government and to its citizens. Even as federal and state governments began to encroach on their domain, maritime insurers adapted, preserving their autonomy and authority through extensive involvement in the formation of commercial law. Leveraging their claims to unmatched expertise, they operated free from government interference while simultaneously embedding themselves into the nation's institutional fabric. By the early nineteenth century, insurers were no longer just risk assessors. They were nation builders and market makers.

Deeply and imaginatively researched, Underwriters of the United States uses marine insurers to reveal a startlingly original story of risk, money, and power in the founding era.

Review Quotes

"One cannot fail to admire the work [Farber] has done to bring together disparate and difficult archives in a truly original account of the formation of the American state and financial institutions. This book is a much-awaited prequel to works by Sharon Ann Murphy, Jonathan Levy and Ulrich Beck . . . and it will be enjoyed by as broad an audience."--International Journal of Maritime History

"Marshaling an array of legal, personal, corporate, quantitative, and printed sources, Farber argues that marine insurance established itself as an essential and autonomous component of the American political economic system from the earliest days of the Revolutionary War. . . . [A] valuable new addition to scholarship on the American state and political economy."--H-Early-America

"Underwriters of the United States is an excellent book in every respect, full of fresh insight into an overlooked aspect of the history of the new republic. . . .Deeply researched, smartly written . . . provides a new gloss on the early history of the United States."--Sea History

"Fascinating, deeply researched, and well-written. . . . Underwriters of the United States is an important, lively, and provocative contribution that will become a touchstone for future scholarship on the relationship between early American business and the state."--Economic History Association

"Property insurance is everywhere, but it is rarely prominent in the public mind. . . .This excellent academic analysis of underwriting in the American shipping industry, up until 1860, has much to say about America today. . . . As Farber's entire book shows, insurance is, and always has been, a political business."--American Affairs Journal