EH.net is owned and operated by the Economic History Association
with the support of other sponsoring organizations. The
Economics of the American Revolutionary War Ben Baack, Ohio
State University By the time of the onset of the American
Revolution, Britain had attained the status of a military and
economic superpower. The thirteen American colonies were one
part of a global empire generated by the British in a series of
colonial wars beginning in the late seventeenth century and
continuing on to the mid eighteenth century. The British
military establishment increased relentlessly in size during
this period as it engaged in the Nine Years War (1688-97), the
War of Spanish Succession (1702-13), the War of Austrian
Succession (1739-48), and the Seven Years War (1756-63). These
wars brought considerable additions to the British Empire. In
North America alone the British victory in the Seven Years War
resulted in France ceding to Britain all of its territory east
of the Mississippi River as well as all of Canada