Lawrence A. Peskin is Professor of History at Morgan State University. He is a leading scholar of the early national United States in international context, with a focus on the Mediterranean world. He is the author of Captives and Countrymen: Barbary Slavery and the American Public 1785–1816 (2009) and co-author of America and the World: Culture, Commerce, Conflict (2011).

• Introduction; Part I. Rise of the Mediterranean Community: 1. Becoming American (and) consuls; 2. James Simpson: isolation and diplomacy in Gibraltar and Tangier; 3. Robert Montgomery: Multiple identities in Alicante; 4. Thomas Appleton: community and conflict in Livorno's American community; Part II. Community Structures: 5. The American social network and national identity; 6. Business networks and the problem of self-interest; 7. Contact with 'others': race, chauvinism and the notion of empire; Part III. Collapse: 8. The long decline; 9. Selling empire; 10. Death and dismemberment; Epilogue: Latin America and the turn toward Empire; Bibliography.

'Three Consuls brings to life a lost world, the one constructed by the networks of American merchants, ship captains, sailors, and adventurers who ventured into the western Mediterranean in the early nineteenth century. All students of the early American republic stand indebted to Lawrence Peskin for his richly detailed evocation of this fascinating place in time, an era when many believed that the nation's destiny lay in mercantile expansion to the Mediterranean.' Christine Leigh Heyrman, University of Delaware

Lawrence A. Peskin is Professor of History at Morgan State University. He is a leading scholar of the early national United States in international context, with a focus on the Mediterranean world. He is the author of Captives and Countrymen: Barbary Slavery and the American Public 1785–1816 (2009) and co-author of America and the World: Culture, Commerce, Conflict (2011).

• Introduction; Part I. Rise of the Mediterranean Community: 1. Becoming American (and) consuls; 2. James Simpson: isolation and diplomacy in Gibraltar and Tangier; 3. Robert Montgomery: Multiple identities in Alicante; 4. Thomas Appleton: community and conflict in Livorno's American community; Part II. Community Structures: 5. The American social network and national identity; 6. Business networks and the problem of self-interest; 7. Contact with 'others': race, chauvinism and the notion of empire; Part III. Collapse: 8. The long decline; 9. Selling empire; 10. Death and dismemberment; Epilogue: Latin America and the turn toward Empire; Bibliography.

'Three Consuls brings to life a lost world, the one constructed by the networks of American merchants, ship captains, sailors, and adventurers who ventured into the western Mediterranean in the early nineteenth century. All students of the early American republic stand indebted to Lawrence Peskin for his richly detailed evocation of this fascinating place in time, an era when many believed that the nation's destiny lay in mercantile expansion to the Mediterranean.' Christine Leigh Heyrman, University of Delaware

Lawrence A. Peskin is Professor of History at Morgan State University. He is a leading scholar of the early national United States in international context, with a focus on the Mediterranean world. He is the author of Captives and Countrymen: Barbary Slavery and the American Public 1785–1816 (2009) and co-author of America and the World: Culture, Commerce, Conflict (2011).

• Introduction; Part I. Rise of the Mediterranean Community: 1. Becoming American (and) consuls; 2. James Simpson: isolation and diplomacy in Gibraltar and Tangier; 3. Robert Montgomery: Multiple identities in Alicante; 4. Thomas Appleton: community and conflict in Livorno's American community; Part II. Community Structures: 5. The American social network and national identity; 6. Business networks and the problem of self-interest; 7. Contact with 'others': race, chauvinism and the notion of empire; Part III. Collapse: 8. The long decline; 9. Selling empire; 10. Death and dismemberment; Epilogue: Latin America and the turn toward Empire; Bibliography.

'Three Consuls brings to life a lost world, the one constructed by the networks of American merchants, ship captains, sailors, and adventurers who ventured into the western Mediterranean in the early nineteenth century. All students of the early American republic stand indebted to Lawrence Peskin for his richly detailed evocation of this fascinating place in time, an era when many believed that the nation's destiny lay in mercantile expansion to the Mediterranean.' Christine Leigh Heyrman, University of Delaware