In Courts and Commerce, Deborah A. Rosen intertwines economic history, legal history, and the history of gender.

Relying on extensive analysis of probate inventories, tax lists, court records, letter books, petitions to the governor, and other documents from the eighteenth century - some never before studied - Rosen describes the expansion of the market economy in colonial New York and the way in which the law provided opportunities for eighteenth-century men to expand their economic networks while at the same time constraining women's opportunities to engage in market relationships.

The book is unusual in its range of interests: it pays special attention to a comparison of urban and rural regions, it examines the role of law in fostering economic development, and it contrasts the different experiences of men and women as the economy changed. This bold and thought-provoking work will find a welcome audience among scholars of colonial American history, economic, social, and legal history, and women's studies.