Greene Jack P. - Atlantic history: a critical appraisal

Atlantic History

REINTERPRETING HISTORY

Wm. Roger Louis, series editor

The series Reinterpreting History is dedicated to the historians craft of challenging assumptions, examining new evidence, and placing topics of significance in historiographical context. Historiography is the art of conveying the ways in which the interpretation of history changes over time. The vigorous and systematic revision of history is at the heart of the discipline.

Reinterpreting History is an initiative of the National History Center, which was created by the American Historical Association in 2002 to advance historical knowledge and to convey to the public at large the historical context of present-day issues.

Making Sense of the Vietnam Wars: Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives EDITED BY Mark Philip Bradley and Marilyn B. Young

Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal EDITED BY Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan

A Critical Appraisal

EDITED BY

Jack P. Greene
Philip D. Morgan

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Atlantic history : a critical appraisal / edited by Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan.
p. cm. (Reinterpreting history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-532033-6; 978-9-19-532034-3 (pbk.)
1. Atlantic Ocean RegionHistoriography. 2. History, ModernHistoriography.
3. ImperialismHistoriography. I. Greene, Jack P. II. Morgan, Philip D., 1949
D206.A75 2009
909'.09821072dc22 2008013694

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

This volume developed out of a session at the 2005 meeting of the American Historical Association in Seattle, which Jack Greene organized, at the request of Roger Louis, on behalf of the National History Center. Rather than putting together yet another session on the promise of Atlantic history, Jack decided that this session might be the occasion for a critical appraisal of that increasingly popular subject and invited scholars of varying opinions to present short papers on its merits and utility. Six of the contributors to this volume participated in that session: Jack served as chair, and Nicholas Canny, Joyce E. Chaplin, Peter A. Coclanis, Philip D. Morgan, and Carla Rahn Phillips presented papers that subsequently developed into contributions to this volume.

The National History Center expected a book to result from this session, and Jack and Phil Morgan assumed the task of putting it together. The editors endeavored to produce a volume that would mirror the contemporary organization and functioning of the Atlantic world as it developed from the fifteenth through the early nineteenth centuries, a volume that would acknowledge the many actors involved in the creation of that world, provide a strong sense of the rich and complex variety of that world, and be as geographically, culturally, and as temporally inclusive as possible. The editors wanted a volume that would assess the impact of the New World of the Atlantic upon the Old Worlds around the Atlantic, and one that would present alternative or complementary frameworks for analyzing that new Atlantic world. To achieve these objectives, we found it necessary to recruit seven new participants: Kenneth Andrien, A. J. R. Russell-Wood, Trevor Burnard, Laurent Dubois, Benjamin Schmidt, Amy Turner Bushnell, and Peter H. Wood, each of whom has contributed a chapter.

The editors wish to thank all the authors for their contributions; several anonymous commentators on the original proposal who made cogent suggestions for expanding and reorganizing the volume; two readers of the first draft of the manuscript who made a number of concise and constructive suggestions, many of which the editors and authors have followed to the letter; and Susan Ferber, whose sharp editorial eye made the volume tighter and more coherent as she shepherded it through the publication process at Oxford University Press. We also thank Susan Danforth, George S. Parker Curator of Maps at the John Carter Brown Library, for suggesting the dust-jacket map, and Joseph Adelman, graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, for completing the index.

Jack P. Greene, East Greenwich, Rhode Island

Philip D. Morgan, Baltimore, Maryland

PHILIP D. MORGAN AND JACK P. GREENE

JOYCE E. CHAPLIN

KENNETH J. ANDRIEN

A. J. R. RUSSELL-WOOD

TREVOR BURNARD

LAURENT DUBOIS

BENJAMIN SCHMIDT

AMY TURNER BUSHNELL

PHILIP D. MORGAN

CARLA RAHN PHILLIPS

PETER H. WOOD

JACK P. GREENE

NICHOLAS CANNY

PETER A. COCLANIS

KENNETH J. ANDRIEN, Humanities Distinguished Professor of History at The Ohio State University, is currently working on a book on intersection of ideas, culture, and public policy in the eighteenth-century Spanish Atlantic Empire.

TREVOR BURNARD, Professor of History, University of Warwick, is working on a co-authored book comparing mid-eighteenth-century Jamaica and Saint-Domingue.

AMY TURNER BUSHNELL, Invited Research Fellow, The John Carter Brown Library, is working on a book about the chiefdom-presidio compact in the eastern woodlands and the concept of a reconciled frontier.

NICHOLAS CANNY, Professor of History and Director of the Moore Institute at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and President of the Royal Irish Academy, is currently comparing French with English writing on the natural history of the Atlantic world 15501720.

JOYCE E. CHAPLIN, James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University, is currently writing a history of around-the-world travel, from Magellan the Spanish explorer to Magellan the GPS system.

PETER A. COCLANIS, Associate Provost for International Affairs and Albert R. Newsome Professor of History at UNC-Chapel Hill, is currently working on the international rice trade between c. 1600 and 1940.

LAURENT DUBOIS, Professor of History and Romance Studies at Duke University, is writing a history of the banjo in the Atlantic world.