Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America | Peter Andreas | Talks Google

4,150 views · Published 7 October 2013 · 41:00 · Indexed 28 October 2026

Channel: Talks at Google · 2013 · Education

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America is a smuggler nation. Our long history of illicit imports has ranged from West Indies molasses and Dutch gunpowder in the 18th century, to British industrial technologies and African slaves in the 19th century, to French condoms and Canadian booze in the early 20th century, to Mexican workers and Colombian cocaine in the modern era. Contraband capitalism, it turns out, has been an integral part of American capitalism.

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