Studies the ties between America and Bremen in the nineteenth century, illuminating the role of merchant capital in making an industrial-capitalist world economy.

Lars Maischak is a lecturer in the history department at California State University, Fresno. This study is based on Maischak's dissertation, for which the Friends of the German Historical Institute awarded him the Fritz Stern Prize for the best dissertation in the field of German-American History in 2006.

Index of tables, graphs, and maps; Glossary; Prologue; Introduction; Part I. Moorings of the Hanseatic Network: 1. Prudent pioneers: Hanseats in trans-Atlantic trade, 1798-1860; 2. The Hanseatic household: families, firms, and faith, 1815-64; 3. Cosmopolitan conservatives: home-town traditions and Western ideas in Bremish politics, 1806-60; Part II. Exchanges: In a Transnational World: 4. Free labor and dependent labor: from patronage to wage labor and social control, 1815-61; 5. International improvement: Hanseats, Hamiltonians, and Jacksonians, 1845-60; 6. Nations, races, and empires: Hanseats encounter the other, 1837-59; Part III. Decline of a Cosmopolitan Community: 7. The end of merchant-capital: crisis and adaptation in a world of industrial capitalism, 1857-90; 8. Decisions and divisions: Hanseatic responses to nation-making wars, 1859-67; 9. Patriarchs into patriots: Hanseats in a world of nation-states, 1867-1945; Conclusion; Appendix: maps; Sources; Bibliography.