Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America.

• Author: Thornton, Mark
• Position: Book review

* Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America

By Peter Andreas

New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Pp. xiii, 454. $29.95 hardcover.

Whenever I receive a book to review that is written by some hotshot Ivy Leaguer, I brace myself for all the deception and tomfoolery that I will have to endure. Peter Andreas's Smuggler Nation, however, turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. Indeed, I can recommend this book to anyone interested in reading a true history of America and becoming better informed about issues ranging from marijuana legalization to immigration reform.

The first point to be made about the book is that smuggling in America has been around since colonial days and will continue into the foreseeable future. Second, smuggling has played a very prominent role, rather than a subsidiary one, throughout our history. Indeed, it has often played a pivotal role in important events err episodes in American history. Third, smuggling is the result of prohibitions and protective tariffs, and the cumulative impact of these policies has been a driving force for the establishment of big government and the police state in America.

Andreas makes it clear that the policies that create incentives to smuggle are irrational, ineffective, and often counterproductive. He also makes it clear that Americans have been duped by self-promoting politicians, self-interested bureaucrats, moralistic crusaders, and a compliant press into supporting various prohibitions to suppress vice. It is also interesting to note that smugglers were often considered heroes--if not by the majority, then certainly by the consumers they served. Many of the wealthy and prominent families in American history, including several of our Founding Fathers, first grew rich on profits from smuggling.

The book, which consists of sixteen chapters divided into five sections, is well written and packed with interesting information and tidbits of American history. However, I focus here on the three chapters for which I have the most expertise. The first covers the Union's Civil War blockade of the South. Andreas clearly describes the unappreciated importance of the "naval" aspects of the war as well as North-South trade during the war, the Confederacy's grand miscalculation regarding King Cotton and the blockade, and the for-profit and largely nonviolent battle between blockaders and blockade runners.

However, although the author seems uneasy with the conclusion, he wrongly concludes...