This book portrays the financial sector as the driving force behind early America's economic transition.

Policy historian Robert E. Wright (Ph.D., SUNY Buffalo) has (co)authored 24 books, including The First Wall Street (Chicago 2005), One Nation Under Debt (McGraw Hill 2008), and The Wall Street Journal Guide to the 50 Economic Indicators That Really Matter (HarperCollins 2011). He taught courses in business, economics, and policy at Temple, Virginia, New York, and Augustana universities before joining the American Institute for Economic Research in January 2021. He has appeared on C-SPAN, Fox Business, and other broadcast outlets and been featured in Barron's, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

1. Introduction: The Wealth of Nations and national wealth; 2. The international and colonial background of America's financial revolution; 3. Banks, securities markets, and the reduction of asymmetric information; 4. The financial sector and the reduction of lending-related costs and risks; 5. Evidence of capital market integration, 1800-50; 6. Expansion of the securities services sector, 1790-1850; 7. The freest of the free: regulation of the financial sector; 8. Finance-directed economic movement; 9. Conclusion: the wealth of nations rediscovered.