Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America

"Smuggler Nation" is a fascinating look at an often ignored thread running through America's economic history This book by Peter Andreas looks at the constant undercurrent of an underground economy in America, and how in many ways, this nation was built on that very thing. In short, people don't like being told what they can and can't buy, and they don't like having to pay endless taxes for a government that they feel is largely out of their reach. I originally purcha. Brian said The Seamy Side of American History. An excellent overview of how America was created in no small part made thanks to smuggling. When one thinks of "old" money, smuggler should come to mind. Throw a dart at any book of American history and one is sure to find the name of a famous "patriot" who was involved in the smuggling trade. And regardless of which regime is in place, smuggling will always b. I found the history so interesting and challenging I decided Richard H. Ernst I found the history so interesting and challenging I decided to lead a four week session OLLI class to help others understand and discuss this version of American history. Peter Andreas busted my high school version of American history. It's not about patriots and freedom , it's about evading tariffs and accumulating personal wealth. Smuggling has played a key

laws but also helping to fuel America's evolution from a remote British colony to the world's pre-eminent superpower.. In tracing America's long and often tortuous relationship with the murky underworld of smuggling, Andreas provides a much-needed antidote to today's hyperbolic depictions of out-of-control borders and growing global crime threats. As Andreas shows, it goes back not just decades but centuries. Far from being a new and unprecedented danger to America, the illicit underside of globalization is actually an old American tradition. And its impact has been decidedly double-edged, not only subverting U.S. This is pure mythology, says Andreas. For better and for worse, America's borders have always been highly porous. The great irony, Andreas tells us, is that a country that was born and grew up through smuggling is today the world's leading anti-smuggling crusader. Our long history of illicit import

He was previously an Academy Scholar at Harvard University, a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and an SSRC-MacArthur Foundation Fellow on International Peace and Security. Peter Andreas is a professor in the Department of Political Science and the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. Andreas has written numerous books, published widely in scholarly journals and policy magazines, presented Congressional testimony, written op-eds for

Fascinating, powerful, persuasive, unexpected, lively, deep, and highly recommended." --James A. Morone, author of Hellfire Nation and coauthor of The Heart of Power. Pauly, Professor and Chair, Political Science, University of Toronto "An extraordinary retelling of the American epic. He points out that many of the important freedoms protected by the Constitution, though they owed their intellectual pedigree to Locke and Montesquieu, had their origin in the travails of colonial smugglers trying to get molasses or gunpowder or Madeira past British customs agents." --Eric Felten, The Wall Street Journal"Deftly explains how the battle lines of the American War of Independence wer