How Radical Economics Led to U.S. Independence

Big historical events often come to seem inevitable, and little today seems more inevitable in retrospect than America’s declaring independence on July 4, 1776.

So it can be startling to recall that well into the spring and early summer of that year, the Continental Congress meeting at the State House in Philadelphia was by no means committed to declaring independence. Until the last minute, powerful men in the Congress still hoped to negotiate a settlement with England.