Eric Jay Dolin

Eric Jay Dolin is the author of Leviathan: The History of Whaling In America, which was chosen as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe, and also won the 2007 John Lyman Award for U. S. Maritime History; and Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America.

His latest book is When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail.

From Dolin's Q & A with China Business Review:

You say in the book that the China trade hastened the arrival of the American Revolution. How so?

Dolin: What was happening in America prior to 1776 and 1775 was an erosion of the ties between the colonies and the mother country, and I think a significant part of that erosion can be related to things that revolved around the China trade. The Boston tea party was a time when the American colonists dumped 342 chests of Chinese tea into Boston Harbor, which was brought there by the British East India Company. The anger surrounding the tea party was not because the colonists were saying, "This is Chinese tea, we are upset that they're bringing Chinese tea." There was a great level of unrest over the power of Great Britain as the mother country, but also the British East India Company riding roughshod over American interests.

Those American interests were divided. There were Americans who had long served as the middlemen between the British East India Company and American consumers. Right before the tea party, the British East India Company was having a tough time offloading its tea so the British government made the tea a lot cheaper and allowed the British East India Company to sell it directly to Americans, cutting out the middleman. American merchants complained that they were losing money because of this new deal.

Americans didn't like the idea of taxation without representation and this little tea tax of three pence was an annoyance that became a focus for anger because tea was being consumed so widely. That all relates to the China trade because this product was ultimately coming from China.

The China trade played a small part in that because there were Americans before the revolution that talked about going to China but couldn't because of the British East India Company monopoly and other Navigation Act restrictions. There were other currents that led to the ultimate break between American and Great Britain, but...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Eric Jay Dolin's website.

Dolin is the author of Leviathan: The History of Whaling In America and Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America.

The Page 99 Test: Fur, Fortune, and Empire.

The Page 99 Test: When America First Met China.

--Marshal Zeringue