"The most original interpretation of how the American Revolution happened to appear in print in the last fifty years."—Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

"The author of this profoundly important book achieves what most historians only dream of. He propels forward to a new stage of understanding a subject—the origins of the American Revolution—that is large, complex and vexed by controversy."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A powerfully argued book. Not only does it offer a detailed account of the workings of the eighteenth-century Atlantic economy—tracing the movement of an increasing variety of manufactured goods from Great Britain into the hands of an ever growing number of colonial consumers—but it also contains an imaginative interpretation of the origins of the American Revolution, transforming the Americans' extraordinary consumer power into political power."—Gordon S. Wood, author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution

"Breen has demonstrated and documented, as never before, the popular origins of the American Revolution. In doing so he has given us new insights into the way a widely dispersed people forged a national identity. This is a seminal work that will affect all future understanding of our national beginnings." —Edmund S. Morgan, author of Benjamin Franklin

"Breen draws a rich portrait of a Colonial society saturated with what Samuel Adams called 'the Baubles of Britain': everything from fine china to Cheshire cheese. The colonists were divided by religion and industry, but the shared a common identity as consumers of British products—and, increasingly, as wronged consumers, once Britain levied exorbitant tariffs and used America as a dumping ground for surplus goods. Tea, the Coca-Cola of its day, became a symbol of imperial overreach. Colonists reacted with what Breen sees as the Revolution's brilliant innovation: the consumer boycott. Benjamin Franklin told Parliament that, while the pride of Americans had been 'to indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain,' it was now 'to wear their old cloaths over again.' Because they shopped together, Americans could rebel together."—The New Yorker

"Breen, an especially accomplished and insightful historian, offers an innovative explanation for the sudden and surprising creation of an American identity and union."—The New Republic

"This interesting work offers an original perspective and some provocative conclusions."—Booklist

"Both elegantly written and informed by the latest scholarship, this volume makes the outbreak of the American Revolution more comprehensible than anything currently on the shelves of your mega bookstore by focusing less on the theories of the founding fathers and more on the not-so-self-sufficient American colonists and the way their mass consumption led to their mass mobilization." —Carole Shammas, John R. Hubbard Chair in History, University of Southern California

"Given the depth of its scholarship, The Marketplace of Revolution is a surprisingly easy read...the well-worn story of the American Revolution gains an entirely unexpected urgency and suspense in his telling."—New York Observer

"Breen makes a convincing case for the primacy of consumer interests in forging a unity among the colonies, and eventually creating the American union. Densely argued, with a wealth of examples."—Kirkus Reviews