Smugglers, Pirates, and Patriots

Free Trade in the Age of Revolution (Early American Studies)

By: Tyson Reeder

Narrated by: Tim Welch

Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Smugglers, Pirates, and Patriots delineates the differences between the British and Portuguese empires as they struggled with revolutionary tumult. It reveals how those differences led to turbulent transnational exchanges between the United States and Brazil as merchants, smugglers, rogue officials, slave traders, and pirates sought to trade outside legal confines. Tyson Reeder argues that although US traders had forged their commerce with Brazil convinced that they could secure republican trade partners there, they were instead forced to reconcile their vision of the Americas as a haven for republics with the reality of a monarchy residing in the hemisphere. He shows that as twilight fell on the Age of Revolution, Brazil and the United States became fellow slave powers rather than fellow republics.

The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

"An important and influential book"(Fabricio Prado, College of William and Mary)

"Tyson Reeder fills a major gap in the historiography of the Age of Revolutions." (H-DIPLO)

©2019 University of Pennsylvania Press (P)2022 Redwood Audiobooks

Review

I enjoyed the quality and clarity of the audio. It helped emphasize aspects of the story. The story it’s self was interesting as it was a clear portrait of classic British imperialism and how they slowly manipulated Portugal over Brazilian gold. The audio certainly offered a very clear, well paced, and easy to understand version of the book. It was also interesting to see how powerful the Portugal empire once was and how they got manipulated over time by England despite them smuggling the entire time.
Highly recommend if is interested in history and trade, as well as the audio certainly allows for any type of listening headphones, speakers, it all works clearly and effectively.

Great Narrator

Smugglers, Pirates, and Patriots isn’t typically the type of novel I would gravitate towards. I am not interested in this genre so the book was definitely a boring one for me. What did make the story interesting was the narration. The narrator's voice helped me stay engaged, the voice was clear and did not show any signs of being monotone at any point in the story. This seems to be the only book by Tyson Reeder, so I can’t say I would give another one of his books a listen.