America Has Always Been a 'Credit Nation'

The Rhodes Center Podcast with Mark Blyth

On this episode: a conversation with Claire Priest. Claire is a historian and Professor at Yale Law School, and author of the book Credit Nation: Property Laws and Institutions in Early America.

In it, she explains how even before the United States became a country, laws prioritizing access to credit set colonial America apart from the rest of the world. This reality didn’t just shape colonial economies -- it was also a key factor in the explosive growth of American capitalism in the nineteenth-century.

This episode was guest-hosted by Rhodes Center Fellow Ann Daly. She's a historian, Assistant Professor of History at Mississippi State University, and an expert on the economics of the American colonies.

Watch Claire Priest's talk at the Rhodes Center.

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