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
"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
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.