Unravelled Dreams
Silk and the Atlantic World, 1500–1840

Reveals how commodity failure, as much as success, can shed light on aspirations, environment, and economic life in colonial societies.

Ben Marsh (Author)

9781108418287, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 April 2020

500 pages
23.6 x 16.2 x 2.9 cm, 0.96 kg

'… Unravelled Dreams recovers the causes and consequences of a forgotten history, highlights contemporaries' coping and compromising with contingencies, and, like all good books, inspires the readers to think and explore more into the story.' Dan Du, Enterprise & Society

One of the greatest hopes and expectations that accompanied American colonialism – from its earliest incarnation – was that Atlantic settlers would be able to locate new sources of raw silk, with which to satiate the boundless desire for luxurious fabrics in European markets. However, in spite of the great upheavals and achievements of Atlantic plantation, this ambition would never be fulfilled. By taking the commercial failure of silk seriously and examining numerous experiments across New Spain, New France, British North America and the early United States, Ben Marsh reveals new insights into aspiration, labour, environment, and economy in these societies. Each devised its own dreams and plans of cultivation, framed by the particularities of cultures and landscapes. Writ large, these dreams would unravel one by one: the attempts to introduce silkworms across the Atlantic world ultimately constituted a step too far, marking out the limits of Europeans' seemingly unbounded power.

List of figures
List of colour plates
List of maps
List of tables
Acknowledgements
1. Prologue
Part I. Emergence: 2. Spain and New Spain
3. England and Virginia
4. France and New France
Part II. Persistence
5. Persistence
6. Lower South: South Carolina and Georgia
7. New England
Part III. Convergence
8. Convergence
9. Pennsylvania and sericultural revolution
10. Silk production in the wake of revolution
11. Epilogue
Selected bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], History of the Americas [HBJK], European history [HBJD]