New World, Inc., John Butman
New World, Inc., John Butman
3 Rating(s)
List: $31.99 | Sale: $22.40
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New World, Inc.
The Making of America by England's Merchant Adventurers

Author: John Butman, Simon Targett

Narrator: Chris Kipiniak

Unabridged: 12 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/20/2018

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

Three generations of English merchant adventurers-not the Pilgrims, as we have so long believed-were the earliest founders of America. Profit-not piety-was their primary motive.

Some seventy years before the Mayflower sailed, a small group of English merchants formed "The Mysterie, Company, and Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and Places Unknown," the world's first joint-stock company. Back then, in the mid-sixteenth century, England was a small and relatively insignificant kingdom on the periphery of Europe, and it had begun to face a daunting array of social, commercial, and political problems. Struggling with a single export-woolen cloth-the merchants were forced to seek new markets and trading partners, especially as political discord followed the straitened circumstances in which so many English people found themselves.

At first they headed east, and dreamed of Cathay-China, with its silks and exotic luxuries. Eventually, they turned west, and so began a new chapter in world history. The work of reaching the New World required the very latest in navigational science as well as an extraordinary appetite for risk. As this absorbing account shows, innovation and risk-taking were at the heart of the settlement of America, as was the profit motive. Trade and business drove English interest in America, and determined what happened once their ships reached the New World.

The result of extensive archival work and a bold interpretation of the historical record, New World, Inc. draws a portrait of life in London, on the Atlantic, and across the New World that offers a fresh analysis of the founding of American history. In the tradition of the best works of history that make us reconsider the past and better understand the present, Butman and Targett examine the enterprising spirit that inspired European settlement of America and established a national culture of entrepreneurship and innovation that continues to this day.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Erik on August 25, 2019

This is a very readable account of early English exploration and settlement of North America. Beginning with Cabot's search for a passage to Asia in 1508 and ending with the Pilgrim's first Thanksgiving in 1621, Butman demonstrates how the overriding impulses driving them across the Atlantic were ec......more

Goodreads review by Tom on May 08, 2018

I've read a lot of early American history; more in the past than recently. While few subjects cause so much ink to be expended, what more can really be said? This book really does bring, for me, a new perspective. Reaching back to the 1558 end of the Pale of Calais and the English wool trade interes......more

Goodreads review by Conor on May 14, 2018

This was my first ARC! I'm excited to review it. "New World, Inc." tells the staccato history of England's colonization of the northern half of the New World. Despite the Pilgrim lore we've been fed throughout the 20th Century, the truth is much less vaunted--jealous of the Spaniards and without a ro......more

Goodreads review by David on August 17, 2018

This well-told narrative of early English exploration in North America will broaden the understanding of any reader who thinks that the project leading to the 13 colonies began at Jamestown (or even Roanoke). Starting with voyages from early in the 16th century, the authors depict in fascinating det......more

Goodreads review by Ionia on March 27, 2018

I was pleasantly surprised after beginning to read this book, that it wasn't just another history of the beginnings of America. This book is filled with information on the people of England that began trying to find a way through Cathay, and offers more than a glimpse into the thoughts and ideas of......more

Quotes

"As John Butman and Simon Targett remind us in their deeply researched and well-written New World, Inc., the Pilgrim venture was the outcome of English attempts over seven decades to reach the fabled East and Cathay (China)... ...Butman and Targett unapologetically describe the mercantile foundations of the Atlantic colonies."—Financial Times

"John Butman and Simon Targett explain the origins of America's colonies by examining London's businesses--especially those that attracted investors eager to explore opportunities abroad...[They] parse the kind of financial details that get lost in many similar histories."—Peter C. Mancall, Wall Street Journal

"This engrossing history of adventure and innovation, disclosing the true motive for America's founding, will appeal to all readers."—Library Journal, Starred Review

"Brisk and fascinating"—Foreign Affairs

"This is a beautifully presented and constructed book, with an arresting collection of colour pictures. It is fluently and elegantly written, and the reader is drawn from page to page, onwards through this fascinating story. In many ways it reads at times like a novel, but this is a serious piece of historical writing. Human interest and drama sit at the heart of this story, but it is also one of science, innovation, navigational daring, bravery, chance, and resilience. It is a story as exciting as it is revealing."—Mark Fox, Reaction

"New World, Inc. makes a good case for changing the conversation from religious to economic migration come November"—Rob Cox, Reuters Breakingviews

"A highly readable book that will open most readers' eyes to a fascinating and little known page of history."—Thomas Urquhart, The Press Herald

"Butman and Targett argue persuasively that the myth of America's founding narrative, centered on the Pilgrims' quest for religious freedom, ignores the reality of England's relationship to the New World in the 16th century... A lively and illuminating revisionist history."—Kirkus

""Butman and Targett are fluent storytellers with an eye for detail"—Publishers' Weekly

"This meticulously researched, well-written, and beautifully designed book tells the fascinating and largely untold story of the earliest days of globalization, of innovation and entrepreneurial risk-taking, and of the creation of some of the earliest venture-financed companies in the world."—Glenn Leibowitz, Write with Impact

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