A major reinterpretation of the transformation of English commerce in the century after 1550

Merchants and Revolution examines the activities of London's merchant community during the early Stuart period. Proposing a new understanding of long-term commercial change, Robert Brenner explains the factors behind the opening of long-distance commerce to the south and east, describing how the great City merchants wielded power to exploit emerging business opportunities, and he profiles the new colonial traders, who became the chief architects of the Commonwealth's dynamic commercial policy.

"Brenner has made more discoveries of importance about the period than any of his contemporaries." - London Review of Books

"Constantly provocative, a giant of a book." - Times Literary Supplement

"If Brenner's work suggests new beginnings, its primary focus is on some of the most venerable debates in British historiography." - Reviews in American History