Book Reviews -- Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653 by Robert Brenner

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Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653. By ROBERT BRENNER. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. xx, 734 pp. $59.50.

AT last! Robert Brenner's book on English commercial groups and politics, 1550 to 1653, preceded by a number of important articles by Brenner that only whetted our appetites, is now here.

The book has four parts, each one long enough to be a volume by itself. Part one discusses three commercial groups prominent in various periods between 1550 and 1650. First were the exporters of cloth to northern Europe (the merchant adventurers); later appeared other merchants who came to specialize …