Title: The Atlantic world : European, Africans, Indians and their shared history, 1400-1900 /
Authors: Benjamin, Thomas, 1952-
Publisher: Cambridge University Press,
Year: 2009
Subjects: History, Modern.; Culture conflict Atlantic Ocean Region History.; Atlantic Ocean Region History.
Abstract: "The Atlantic World spans four centuries with significant historical periods and transitions between 1400 and 1900; tells the story of the different peoples, societies, and cultures that used the Atlantic and addresses the relationships, connections, and exchanges, which crisscrossed the Atlantic Ocean. Over this period, the Atlantic became a potential source of contacts, communications, networks, alliances and multiple ties between Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans. In the end, it transformed their societies and gave birth to new peoples, cultures, economic and social structures, and global relations. Three main themes that structure these Atlantic histories are; First, the belief that Europeans were those who pioneered the Atlantic crossing beyond their home borders. Second, that the development of Atlantic trade, colonies, economies, and empires was the outcome of a process of interactions, exchanges and engagements between Europeans, Africans, and Indians to which all of them contributed. The third theme contends that the Atlantic system vanished after having operated with a great deal of zest and dynamism for five centuries. On the basis of a wealth of primary sources ranging from travel accounts, letters, diaries, journals, and autobiographies to pamphlets, collective documents, and encyclopedias; from Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch sources to English and French ones, from sources covering the pre-Columbian period to those dealing with the modern one, Benjamin wrote a learned, profound, yet an accessible history of the Atlantic world, even to the lay history reader, and a useful textbook to the historian and student of history."--African Studies Quarterly (online journal -- March 22, 2010) (March 2, 2011).
Contents: Antecedents: the Americas, Africa and Europe in the fifteenth century -- Commencement: the European opening of the Atlantic ocean -- Conquests: forging the Iberian empires in Africa and the Americas -- Realms: the overseas empires of Spain and Portugal -- Incursions: French, English and Dutch invasions of the Iberian Atlantic -- Engagement: the entangled worlds of Indians and Europeans -- Uprooted: West Africa, the Americas, and the Atlantic slave trade -- Bondage: the Atlantic plantation complex and the cultures of slaves -- Partners: women and men in the making of the Atlantic world -- Rivals: Britain and France in the long eighteenth century -- Liberty: the Atlantic world in the age of revolution -- Equality: the Atlantic world in the age of revolution -- Freedom: the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade and new world slavery.