John Lauritz Larson is professor of history at Purdue University. For ten years he served as co-editor of the Journal of the Early Republic. He is the author of Bonds of Enterprise: John Murray Forbes and Western Development in America's Railway Age (1984) and Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the New United States (2001), as well as numerous essays on early American economic development.
Introduction: what do we mean by a market revolution?
1. First fruits of independence
Interlude: panic! 1819
2. Marvelous improvements everywhere
Interlude: panic! 1837
3. Heartless markets, heartless men
4. How can we explain it?
Epilogue: panic! 2008, deja vu all over again
An essay on the sources.
