Synopses & Reviews
Europeans Engaging the Atlantic offers innovative perspectives on historical European knowledge concerning the New World” and on trade and commerce therewith. In so doing, it enhances our understanding of how, when, and why early modern Europeans made sense of the Atlantic world, and how they tried to connect with Atlantic trade and commerce. Featuring case studies that discuss these issues from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, this volume explores both the degree to which the Atlantic was (or was not) part of the European worldviewor just one part of a worldview with many centers of interestand how European engagement with the Atlantic world evolved.
Review
"To attempt to combine the methods and the inspirational genius of an Edward S. Morgan, a Bernard Bailyn, a Jacob Price, and a Simon Schama in one work is a daunting if not forbidding challenge, but it is one to which David Hancock rises with distinction. Citizens of the World is not your usual run-of-the-mill collective biography or dry-as-dust statistical analysis of colonial trade patterns. It is an inspired account of the whole lives of men who made a difference in the world of trade by their willingness to challenge the system from within....must reading for anyone interested in the emergence of the American economy in the eighteenth century, just as it stands as must reading for anyone who wishes to understand better the predominant role certain London merchants played in shaping the course of the British Empire in the last decades of the eighteenth century." The Journal of American History"...Hancock tackles a wildly ambitious topic--and succeeds brilliantly....a must reading for every scholar interested in the complex institutional structure of the North Atlantic economy in the eighteenth-century--and in the evolution of the increasingly interactive international economy over the last three hundred years." Business History Review"...[a] magisterial, beautifully written book." Boston Book Review"Hancock has not just rehabilitated a long-forgotten relationship of eighteenth-century merchants; he has re-created a world few knew existed..." Times Literary Supplement"This splendid biography of twenty-three inter-connected London 'associates' in the Atlantic trades is innovative in method, comprehensive in scope, and insightful in relation to exisitng literature....Hancock has provided a new, demanding, and rewarding model for group biography." Ian Steele, The Northern Mariner"David Hancock's 'Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785' effectivley combines economic and socio-cultural history to produce a much clearer picture of entrepreneurial activities in eighteenth-century Britain than we have hitherto enjoyed." Michael Slaven, Pennsylvania History"David Hancock in his first book...makes a significant contribution to eighteenth-century Anglo-American commercial and social history....Hancock has written an interesting, scolarly, well-illustrated book that demonstrates that the associates helped to integrate the British empire in the period 1735-1785 by increasing its scope, "deepening its infrastructure, expanding its trade, peopling its shores and hinterlands, and spreading the new optimistic, experimental ideas of the Enlightenment (p.386)." Kenneth Morgan, William and Mary Quarterly"Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1734-1785, by David Hancock is an impressive cintribution to the literature on the eighteenth century Anglo-American world. This well conceived and exhaustively researched book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Anglo-American world and to imperial trade in the eighteenth century. Citizens of the World is lively, lucid, and informed by a broad and stimulating reading of relevant and related historiographies. It will prove necessary reading for all scholars of Anglo-American, British, and Imperial history for years to come." Richard Connors, Canadian Journal of History"This is a detailed study of the business and social climbing of a group of eighteenth century British merchants active in the Atlantic world....Hancock has done a prodigious amount of research." J.R. McNeill, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Review
"Lachenicht’s edited collection examines the relationship between Europe and the Atlantic World during the early modern period. In an attempt to balance out the plethora of studies that center on American, British, Spanish, French, and Dutch impacts in the Caribbean, the essays in this volume focus on European regions and peoples that at first glance seem to have had little impact and interaction with the Atlantic World. . . . The collection makes a strong case that different 'Atlantic Worlds' existed in the minds of Europeans, but that by the mid-eighteenth century a more stable and acknowledged understanding of the region emerged. . . . By moving the lens to lesser-known actors, Lachenicht has provided a fuller picture of the Atlantic World as a field of study and analysis. . . . Highly recommended."
Synopsis
Examines the business and social strategies of the men who developed the British empire in the eighteenth century.
Synopsis
Citizens of the World examines the business and social strategies of the men who developed the British empire in the eighteenth century. This book focuses on twenty-three London merchants who traded with America in an age of imperial expansion. These "associates" started their careers as marginal people, sought and took advantage of opportunities around the world, and approached their business and social lives with the improving ideals of the practical Enlightenment. This activity is placed in the context of the developing institutions of Britain's colonies in America and the social world of polite and industrious men and women at home.
Synopsis
In presenting new and fresh case studies on European knowledge about New Worlds” as well as trade and commerce with the latter, this book will contribute to a better understanding of how, when and why Europeans made sense of the Atlantic World and how they tried to connect with Atlantic trade and commerce. With case studies discussing these issues from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the volume will show how European engagements with the Atlantic World” evolved and how much the Atlantic” was (or was not) part of their worlds or just one part of one world with many centers of interest.
About the Author
Susanne Lachenicht is professor of early modern history at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. She is coeditor of Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present, also published by Campus Verlag.
Table of Contents
Part I. The Crucible of Trade: 1. A larger world; 2. Mercantile origins: 'passengers only'; Part II. The Management of Trade: 3. Managing from a 'Merchant's public counting house'; 4. Shipping and trading in an 'empire of the seas'; 5. Planting: 'a great fund of riches and of strength to Great Britain'; 6. Slaving: Bance Island's 'general rendezvous'; 7. Government contracting: 'a work of Hercules'; 8. Financing: 'turning the great wheel of unfathomable commerce round'; Part III. Becoming a Gentleman: 9. The urge to improve; 10. The way to be rich and respectable; Epilogue: mercantile legacies: 'industrious friends'.