In Underwriters of the United States, Hannah Farber reframes the formation of the early American state, emphasizing the crucial role marine insurance played in its development. Drawing on political economy and business history, Farber makes a compelling case for the centrality of insurers—not as entities shaped solely by the demands of the state but as co-architects of the state itself. In her telling, marine insurers were deeply enmeshed in the formation of American political and economic institutions. They were not simply intermediaries managing risk but key players in a process of mutual shaping—what she calls “coformation”—between business and state.

Farber begins by placing insurers in a volatile Atlantic world shaped by imperial warfare, maritime insecurity, and institutional fragility. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, she argues, were defined by “uncertainty layered on top of a business of risk” (p. 18). Insurance provided a way to navigate this volatility—not just for merchants seeking to protect their ventures but also for the state, which relied on insured trade to fund wars and stabilize its fragile economy. Insurance, in other words, helped make both commerce and governance possible.

Farber’s central claim is that marine insurers functioned as quasi-state actors. They enforced contracts, adjudicated disputes, and exerted influence in matters of commercial diplomacy. Their expertise in risk management, combined with privileged access to information networks, allowed them to exercise authority that exceeded their formal legal status. This governance role developed not through state-imposed regulation, but through insurers’ own capacity to stabilize markets and facilitate commerce in an environment of persistent uncertainty.

She draws an insightful parallel to modern regulatory capture but flips the script. In this case, she writes, “the business actually predates the state whose rules it supposedly captures” (p. 22). Rather than industry overwhelming a pre-existing regulatory apparatus, insurers helped shape the legal and institutional framework from the ground up. This co-development became particularly visible in the post-Revolutionary period, as marine insurers participated in state constitution-making, the chartering of corporations, and the creation of financial infrastructure.

This relationship between insurers and the state became even clearer in the early republic, as Americans focused on building new institutions through incorporation and constitutional design. The chartering of insurance companies was not merely an economic or partisan process—it was also a legal and ideological act, integral to the larger project of American state-building. Corporate and political constitutions, Farber shows, were shaped by many of the same people and reflected many of the same concerns. Charters established new bodies politic, and insurers had to be positioned relative to citizens, to state authority, and to the emerging federal union.

Farber is particularly attentive to the dual nature of insurers’ political power. On one hand, they portrayed themselves as civic-minded stewards of trade and stability. On the other, they retained substantial discretion over what they disclosed to the public—and what they chose to keep hidden. Their political influence, similar to their financial strategies, involved managing risk, including the risk of public scrutiny. This discretion extended to their involvement in the slave trade, the opaque terms of their charters, and the political implications of their investments.

Throughout the book, there are recurring key themes: the interplay of risk, information, and power; the negotiation between private autonomy and public authority; and the long-term consequences of embedding financial institutions within the legal and political fabric of the state. Farber’s analysis of expertise stands out in particular. Marine insurers’ claims to specialized knowledge of markets, pricing, and their invocation of the semi-mythical lex mercatoria, the “laws of merchants,” along with their access to information networks, made them uniquely equipped to operate in a world where risk was not just an economic concept but also a political and military reality. Farber demonstrates how insurers’ expertise—both claimed and actual—enabled them to assess, price, and distribute risk in ways that governments could not. This knowledge gave them considerable leverage, especially during times of war.

Underwriters of the United States is a significant contribution to the fields of business history, financial governance, and early American political development. Farber’s most notable achievement is her ability to demonstrate how a seemingly narrow commercial institution—marine insurance—played a foundational role in shaping the American state. Her argument is both nuanced and persuasive, supported by a wide range of deeply researched sources. The endnotes alone occupy more than a quarter of the manuscript, attesting to the depth of her archival work. Her primary sources include insurance company records—such as ledgers, letter books, policies, and charters—as well as merchants’ correspondence, state and federal documents, and contemporary newspaper coverage of voyages, insurance rates, and political discourse.

In Underwriters of the United States, Farber successfully challenges the conventional separation between business history and state formation, revealing instead a dense web of mutual dependence. For business historians, the book offers a compelling case study of how private financial actors can shape—and be shaped by—political institutions. For scholars of the early republic, it offers a new lens on the origins of American governance, one that foregrounds expertise, information, and risk as central categories of analysis.

This is a book that broadens the scope of business history and deepens our understanding of the infrastructure that underwrote the early American state. It is essential reading for anyone interested in how institutions are built—not just through legislation or revolution but through contracts, credit, and the logic of insurance.