New World, Inc.: The Making of America by England’s Merchant Adventurers

On May 20, 1553, three ships chartered by an English joint-stock company called the Mysterie set off down the Thames from London in search of “Regions, Dominions, Islands, and Places Unknown.” The Mysterie ships sought a northern passage to the riches of Cathay, or China. They never found it—but, as business writer Butman (Breaking Out) and journalist Targett explain, their voyage inaugurated a new age of English seafaring propelled by the twin currents of trading profit and entrepreneurial zeal. The authors portray these 16th-century English merchant adventurers as the real founders of the New World, enterprising men whose appetite for risk made them a natural fit for their tempestuous times and whose critical role in the American story was erased in favor of the pious pilgrims. Butman and Targett are fluent storytellers with an eye for detail, but their rewriting of the age of exploration as a straightforward paean to modern-day capitalism is problematic; the story they tell isolates the motives of a handful of men from the wider context of the early Atlantic economy. [em]Agent: Katherine Flynn, Kneerim & Williams. (Mar.) [/em]