Matthew Chambers
2/18/12
Atlantic History Scholarly Biography:
David Hancock
Receiving his bachelor’s degree at William and Mary and then moving on, first to
complete a master’s degree in music at Yale, and then to Harvard to complete a second masters
and Ph.D. in history in 1990, David Hancock is somewhat more green than the likes of Bernard
Bailyn and John Elliott – he has not won a Pulitzer Prize or been knighted yet – but he seems to
be well on his way to a distinguished and prolific career. From 1990 to 1996, he taught at
Harvard before moving to take a position at the University of Michigan. During 2003 he was a
visiting professor at the University of Paris, and again in 2008 at Queen Mary’s college in the
University of London. Furthermore, Professor Hancock also directs Michigan’s Atlantic Studies
Initiative, and serves as an editor for Enterprise and Society, H-Atlantic, History Compass, and
the Journal of the Early Republic. As some of the journals might suggests, along with Atlantic
history in general, Hancock focuses on Colonial America, Early-Modern Britain and its empire
abroad, and economic history. In the past two decades, Dr. Hancock has published two major
monographs: Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic
Community (1995) and Oceans of Wine: Madeira and the Organization of the Atlantic Market,
1640-1815 (2009). Currently, he is working on a number of projects concerning various Atlantic
themed subjects: the Disappearance of the Market 1607 -2007, a study of the evolution of the
American marketplace from something physical into something abstract, as well as a work on
apprenticeship in America from 1670 – 1730, and another work on Atlantic shipwrecks.
His earliest monograph, Citizens of the World, originated from his Harvard dissertation
paper (originally some 1,500 pages, the book in its final form was roughly one third of this).
Examining the period before the American Revolution, the book focuses on four English
merchants and their respective associates and narrates how they rose from obscurity to amass
great wealth and power. Throughout the book, Hancock strives to show that the various
merchants attempted to diversify their holdings through what he terms as “backward
integration”, a process which aimed at achieving control over every aspect of their products
(distribution, transportation, planting, and slaving). In short, Hancock argues that the Atlantic
world of the British Empire was shaped and structured by a select merchant class who served as
the necessary “colonial correspondence between mother country and dependent colonies,” and
further argues that neither the edge of the British Empire nor the its core prospered alone, but
rather both were interdependent on each other, thus the select merchant class became key in the
prosperity of the empire as a whole.1 Ultimately, Hancock claims to be influenced by the
Annales school of history and the works of Bernard Bailyn by using a study that relies heavily on
biographical and statistical data to show the Atlantic as more of a bridge between the old and
new worlds.2 Concerning Hancock’s goal in showing how a few merchants shaped the prosperity
and economic structure of the British Empire, and the Atlantic world at large, H.V. Bowen notes
in his review of the book that: “When expectations are raised in such a way, the reader is often
disappointed. On this occasion, however, initial fears that the author has been over-ambitious
and pretentious in setting himself and his work up in this historiographical context prove to be
unfounded as the full depth and richness of the book are revealed.”3 Many other scholars tend to
1
David Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community,
1735 -1785, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995) 19-21.
2
Hancock, Citizens of the World, 8.
3
H.V. Bowen, The Economic History Review , New Series, Vol. 49, No. 2 (May, 1996), pp. 395-396.
agree, that work manages to meet the grandiose historiographical burden that it sets for itself. In
describing the work, phrases like: “remarkable,” “perhaps the finest work ever done on a
mercantile group,” and “this fascinating book has something in it for almost everyone” tend to
crop up, and according to Leonard Schwarz, such praise is well deserved.4
The second major monograph that Hancock was the sole author of was his Oceans of
Wine, a peculiar book inspired by a vacation to a spa resort on the island of Madeira, in which,
having his “glorious plans” dashed by the rain, Hancock decided to visit the Madeira Wine
Company. While on a tour, he stumbled upon a massive trove documents relating to the wine
trade, in a room open to the elements and containing (among other things) dead chickens and a
donkey skeleton.5 Once again, his book entails a massive collection of research, with the notes
alone amounting to some one-hundred and fifty pages, based on documents recently discovered
heaped up in no particular order in a decrepit building – the research here is impressive to say the
least. Hancock’s goal was to “narrate the life of a particular Atlantic commodity…from grape to
table” and perhaps more importantly, he seeks to explain how individuals figure into and
experience the massive economic and political network of trans-Atlantic trade and inter-imperial
markets.6 Hancock also points out that no single person or group sought to create a “interimperial market” across the Atlantic, but rather such a market emerged via decentralized
individuals attempting to solve local problems and issues, and that ultimately Atlantic trade
networks should be viewed as “self-organized.” Thus, while the book seems to focus exclusively
on Madeira wine, the wine itself is nothing more than a case study used to explain how imperial
4
5
Leonard Schwarz, The English Historical Review , Vol. 112, No. 449 (Nov., 1997), pp. 1220-1221.
David Hancock, Oceans of Wine, Madeira and the Emergence of American Trade and Taste, (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2008), xiii.
6
Hancock, Oceans of Wine, xiv.
trade networks emerged across the ocean.7 In short, Hancock avoids using the classical
perspective about how geography, climate, technology, and state policy shaped and transformed
the production and distribution of Madeira wine was established. Though he acknowledges that
such an explanation could be “more informative and shorter,” it leaves out something incredibly
important. Rather, he seeks to elucidate the connections of “real people” and the institutions they
created and managed for over a 175 year period.8 As with Hancock’s first book, many scholars
have applauded his unconventional approach to wine production and the inter-imperial trade.
Gaspar Pereira notes that his approach is “enriching” and provides a unique way of examining
trans-Atlantic trade which deemphasizes the importance of the metropolis. 9
7
Hancock, Oceans of Wine, xxxiii.
Hancock, Oceans of Wine, 394.
9
Pereira. “Oceans of Wine: Madeira and the Emergence of American Trade and Taste.” Business History 52, no. 4:
671-673.
8
Bibliography
Selected Publications:
Books:
Oceans of Wine: Madeira and the Organization of the Atlantic Market, 1640-1815 (2009).
History of World Trade since 1450, with John McCusker, Stanley Engerman and Kenneth
Pomeranz (2006).
The Letters of William Freeman, London Merchant, 1678-1685 (2002).
Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community,
1735-1785 (1995).
Articles/Chapters
“The Triumphs of Mercury: Connection and Control in the Emerging Atlantic Economy,” in B.
Bailyn, ed., Soundings (2009), pp. 1-42.
“Guerre et commerce (1750-1815),” in S. Marzagalli and B. Marnot, eds., Guerre et Économie
dans l’Espace Atlantique du XVIe au XXe Siècle (2006), pp. 331-74.
“Rethinking the Economy of British America,” in C. Matson, ed., The Economy of Early
America: Historical Perspectives & New Directions (2005), pp. 71-106.
“The Trouble with Networks,” Business History Review, 79 (2005), 467-491.
“L’émergence d’une économie de réseau (1640-1815),”Annales, histoire, sciences sociales, 58
(May-June 2003), 649-72.
"Commerce and conversation in the eighteenth-century Atlantic: the invention of Madeira
wine," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 29, 2 (1998)