Price : American Port Towns	127

time, in which the economy and life of the towns reflect changing
conditions in the greater world about them. Most of these are also
insufficiently quantitative in their approach: statistics are given in
appendices; they are rarely integrated into the analysis. Neverthe-
less,such studies are useful in themselves and valuable beginnings.14
On quite a different level are the monumental works of Carl
Bridenbaugh on the five principal colonial towns (Boston, New-
port, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston) from their begin-
nings until I7y6.15 Historiographically, Bridenbaugh is most im- j
portant. He devoted twenty-live years to the study of the begin- I
"rungs of town life in the United States long before urban studies/
"were fashionable; he also pioneered "comparative studies" beforel
that term had been invented. He brought to his work imagination
and catholic interests that could find place for everything from
drains to jails to theaters and a considerable erudition that absorbed
all the printed sources plus the records of the towns investigated.
It is unlikely that anyone else will soon attempt to do over what he
has so thoroughly done. For our purposes, however, Bridenbaugh
has not quite finished the job. First of all, he would himself, I think,
be the first to admit that he is not particularly sympadietic toward
the quantitative approach to history. If we compare Bridenbaugh's

With   (fnr pyirnM  t-Ka P^n'v^f irnlnmp on

eighteenth century,16 we can see what this means. The Pariset vpl-
ume has the same broad focus as Bridenbaugh. with chapterson
demography, intellectual, artistic, and religious life, as well as the
expected politics and economics. However, when we look in par-
ticular at the elegant chapters on the port's trade bv Francois Crou-
_zet_and on its demography by J. P. Poussou, we find not only sta-

14. Cf. Virginia D. Harrington, The New York Merchant on the Eve of the Revolution
(New York, 1935), the best of the group with valuable statistics; Arthur L. Jensen, "Die
Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia (Madison, 1963), despite its ride heavily po-
litical; and Leila Sellers, Charleston Business on ttie Eve of the American Revolution (Chapel
Hill, 1934).

1 5. Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness: Tlie First Century of Urban Life in America
1625-1742 (New York, 1938), and Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America 1743-1776 (1955;
2d ed., New York, 1971). The second but not the first edition of the latter has a valuable
bibliography.

16. See note 11.