Before the voyage of Columbus in 1492, the Atlantic Ocean stoodas a barrier to contact between the people (and their ideas andinstitutions), plants, animals, and microbes of Eurasia and Africaon the one hand and the Americas on the other. FollowingColumbus’s voyage, the Atlantic turned into a conduit fortransferring these things among the four continents bordering theocean in ways that affected people living on each of them.
The appearance of The Atlantic World marks an importantachievement, for it stands out as the first successful attempt tocombine the many strains of Atlantic history into a comprehensive,thoughtful narrative. At the core of this ground-breaking andeloquently written survey lies a consideration of the relationshipsamong people living in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, with afocus on how these relationships played important roles—oftenthe most important roles—in how the histories of the peopleinvolved unfolded. The ways of life of millions of people changed,sometimes for the better but often for the worse, because of theirrelationship to the larger Atlantic world. And unlike existingtexts dealing with one or another aspect of Atlantic history, TheAtlantic World does not subjugate the history of Africa and SouthAmerica to those of the “British Atlantic” orEurope.
With historians and other scholars beginning to reconceptualizethe Atlantic World as a dynamic zone of exchange in which people,commodities, and ideas circulated from the mid-fifteenth centuryuntil the dawn of the twentieth century, the interconnectionsbetween people along the Atlantic rim create a coherent region, onein which events in one corner inevitably altered the course ofhistory in another. As this book testifies, Atlantic history,properly understood, is history without borders—in whichnational narratives take backstage to the larger examination ofinterdependence and cultural transmission.
Conceived of and produced by a team of distinguished authorswith countless hours of teaching experience at the college level,this thoughtfully organized, beautifully written, and lavishlyillustrated book will set the standard for all future surveysintended as a core text for the new and rapidly growing courses inAtlantic History.