Author: Stephen Alexander Fortune
Born: 17 December 1941
Bio: **Stephen Alexander Fortune** (17 December 1941 -)

Stephen A. Fortune has been Associate Professor of History at Elon University (North Carolina, USA) since 1996.  

He received his Bachelor of Arts from Howard University and his Doctorate of Philosophy from University of California, San Diego.  He worked in the History and Social Sciences faculty at North Carolina Central University, Durham back in the 1980s when he published his book "*Merchants and Jews: The Struggle for British West Indian Commerce, 1650-1750*" (1984).

>"*Stephen Fortune's conclusion that 'the real capital inﬂow from Spanish America through the West Indian trade helped nudge the British economy into supremacy' differs sharply from the viewpoint other historians in the field*.  

>"*Furthermore, for the substance of his book he states that 'ﬂow of capital and staples, whether through Curacao, North America, Barbados, Jamaica, or directly to England, included extensive Jewish participation never before examined'; and that 'the entire spectrum of commercial activity inspired continuous rivalries between Creole merchants and Jewish businessmen' - not particularly original in view of the body of literature already written by that time on the subject of New World Jewry.*"

During this time he also wrote "*The Plantation Revolution and the Smuggler's Trade, 1650-1750*" (1986) for Southern Historical Association Journal and also edited the chapter "*Unbound But Still Unfree*" in "Twentieth-Century Latin America" (1987).