Description: "Fills a major gap in our knowledge of how the Old Empire worked."--The Historian"Every reader can learn plenty from reading the book closely. Steele offers abundant detail on counless subjects....He has done heroic quantities of archival research....An informative, scholarly, thorough analysis."--Journal of Modern History"Repays a careful reading not merely for its wealth of detail but also because it suggests a promising perspective for considering the English Atlantic world and, indeed, much of early American history....It belongs on that small but growing shelf of indispensable books on communications in colonial America."--Technology and Culture"A tour de force...By focusing on aspects of this history which many social and economic historians simply ignore, he has made a splendid contribution to what some of us think is the best sort of new social history."--Canadian Journal of History"Many scholars have seen the Atlantic Ocean as an intercontinental divide separating England from her American colonies, creating isolated societies. Early modern Atlantic communications have ofteen been portrayed as slow, infrequent, and dangerous. In this detailed and provocative study, Steele presents a challenging and radical reinterpretation of such views."--CHOICE"There is quite simply no antecedent work within the field to which [this] can be compared....It is very rare that a book so original in concept is also so comprehensive in its coverage and in the depth of its research."--Richard Johnson, University of Washington"Steele has amassed and carefully interpreted a body of evidence, both primary and secondary, unsurpassed in its richness and comprehensiveness....He provides an excelletn background to the role of communications before the period of disintegration leading to 1776."--The Geographical Review"Steele's well-researched and well-written study tells us much about the workings of the English Atlantic world....A clearly significant contribution to early modern historiography."--Business History Review"Excellent....Steele's novel perspective on Anglo-American history and his meticulous mining of primary and secondary materials combine to make this a book at once solid and exciting."--Journal of American Studies

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