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The Atlantic World in the Age of Empire - History 562
Professor Thomas Benjamin
Central Michigan University
Fall 1998
The dramatic European navigations of the fifteenth century brought four continents
and three races into interaction where there had been little or no communication
before. Since the mid-fifteenth century, the Atlantic has provided the corridor
for fundamental exchanges of peoples, crops, and technology. It has served
as an arena for the transfer of ideas defining and challenging communities
across wide spans of time and space. This course explores the origin and development
of the Atlantic world - a vast Atlantic circuit, a new human network of points
and passages. It examines early maritime explorations, imperial expansion
and colonization, European-Amerindian relations, European-African relations,
slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the growth of mercantile capitalism
and the establishment of an Atlantic economy, the maturation of Euro-American
colonial societies and their struggles for autonomy and national independence.
Course Objectives
As a result of lectures, assigned readings, discussions, documentary films,
written and oral reports and examinations students will learn and demonstrate
their ability to: Identify, describe, and explain the following topics and
articulate these understandings both orally and in writing:
1. the origin of overseas European expansion beginning in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries;
2. the establishment of an Atlantic economy as a result of the expansion of
merchant capital;
3. the development of European colonial societies throughout the Americas,
north, central, south and the Caribbean;
4. the conquest, survival and adaptation of the native peoples of the Americas
and their relations with Europeans;
5. the rise, development and eventual abolition of the trans-Atlantic African
slave trade;
6. the rise, development and eventual abolition of African slavery throughout
the Americas;
7. the integration of West and South Africa into the Atlantic system;
8. the origin and development of creole nationalism in the Americas and the
creation of independent American states and nations.
Required Reading
J.H. Parry, The Establishment of the European Hegemony, 1415-1715: Trade
and Exploration in the Age of the Renaissance, third edition (New York:
Harper Torchbooks, 1966).
Ralph Davies, The Rise of the Atlantic Economies (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1973).
John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World,
1400-1800, second edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Gary B. Nash, Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early America,
second edition (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1982).
Historiography
Presentation and Essay
What is Historiography? Historiography is history as knowledge production.
The study of historiography concerns the ways the past has been researched,
organized, understood, debated and written in general and on a particular
topics. By examining historiography we will identify the major interpretations,
and interpretative disagreements, that historians have developed to understand
and explain the early Atlantic world. Those interpretations, and debates about
interpretations, are what history knowledge is all about, they are what historians
are most concerned about, they are history.
The Assignment
Your historiographical presentation and essay will be based on the reading
of historiographical essays which are articles that review, analyze, criticize
and summarize what a particular group of historians have written about a specific
historical topic. The historiographical topics and related required reading
list are provided in the second section of this syllabus. The purpose of your
reading, presenting and writing is to determine how historians today understand
a particular topic. The readings in each section are related to one topic
but do not as a group have any clear and obvious collective meaning or point
to any overriding conclusions. You have to make sense of a diverse set of
articles and determine the patterns within the historiography of your topic.
The more you read on the topic the easier it is to make sense of the historiographical
field. Begin with these questions: What are the major areas of research and
key problems within a field of historical study? On what issues do historians
tend to agree, what are the issues of disagreement and debate? How did historians
a generation or so in the past understand a particular topic and how have
historians in the last few decades revised our understanding of it? Have recent
historians found new sources of information and/or adopted new methods or
theories in their revision of history? What areas or issues of study would
be fruitful for historians today and in the future?These are the questions
you will need to consider when you read the essays and think about your assignment.
What are historians learning about early Atlantic history? That is the fundamental
question you need to ask and answer in your reading, and then explain in your
presentation and essay. What have you learned that is both interesting and
significant about how to think about the early Atlantic world and therefore
is worthwhile sharing with others who are interested in understanding the
history of the early Atlantic world?
Affinity Groups and Presentations
Students will be organized in study groups which will be responsible for examining
and analyzing a particular historiographical topic for the purpose of organizing
and delivering a presentation to the class. Each set of readings offer no
obvious Iconclusions which means you have to make your own conclusions. Each
of the historiographical topics are large and complex which means that the
topic can be organized, analyzed and explained in different ways. Affinity
groups provide the mechanism by which students can share knowledge and understanding
for the greater benefit of every member of the group. This will work, of course,
only if every member of the group reads all of the ! readings, attends group
discussions, and participates fully. Each group will determine how it will
study the topic, organize it, and make the presentation. Through discussion
each group will develop the best way to understand the topic and explain it
to the class. Each group's presentation should clearly explain the key issues
related to the recent historiography of I the topic under review. Groups may
wish to designate a single speaker to deliver their presentation or divide
the task among all of the members of I the group.
On October 19 each group will give a preliminary review of their topic, as
well as respond to questions and comments from the class, as a way of developing
a general discussion on their particular area of the early Atlantic. world.
On December 7 each group will make its formal presentation to the class. Each
presentation should be no longer than 20-25 minutes to be followed by questions
from the class. The group will receive a grade evaluating the clarity, organization,
and analytical sophistication of the presentation which will then become the
individual's grade.
The Historiographical Essay
Each student is required to write a historiographical essay on the subject
of their group's presentation. The
affinity group is responsible for the presentation but each student will write
I his or her own individual essay. It is understood that these essays will
reflect the ideas of the study group but it is also expected that the essay
will be the product of individual effort. Each essay will be different and
unique, or higher or lower quality, because it will reflect the particular
reading and research, writing style, method of organization, and analysis
and understanding of the student author. Each essay should be no less than
ten pages in length and follow the standard format for formal papers: 12 point
font, 27 lines per page, double spaced, half-inch margins, footnotes or endnotes
according to an approved style sheet, and a title page and a bibliography
of sources read and cited. The historiographical essays are due on December
17 and will not be accepted after that date.
Course Outline
Part One
August 31 Introduction
September 14 Before 1492
Thornton Intro, Ch.l/Nash Ch. 1/Parry Introduction
September 21 Discoveries and Conquests
Parry Chs. 1-4/Nash Ch. 2/Davis Chs. 1-2
September 28 The Iberian Empires
Davis Chs. 3-4, 9-10/ Thornton Ch. 2
October 5 The Northern Europeans
Parry Chs. 5, 7-8/ Nash Ch. 3/Davis Chs. 5-8
October 12 Indians and Europeans
Nash Ch.4-6
October 19 Preliminary Group Discussions
October 26 Two Hour Examination
Part Two
November 2 Slavery and the Plantation
Parry Ch. 11/ Thornton Part I/ Nash Ch. 7
November 9 The Atlantic Slave Trade
Thornton Part.ll/ Nash Ch. 8/Davis Ch. 15
November 16 Empires and Trades
Parry Ch.9/Davis Chs. 11-15
November 23 Imperial Rivalries
Nash Chs. 10-11/ Davis Chs. 17-18/ Parry Ch. 11
November 30 Atlantic Revolutions
Nash Chs. 9. 12
December 7 Affinity Group Presentations
December 14 Two Hour Examination
December 17 Historiographical Essays Due
Atlantic World Historiography
1. The Modem World-System
In the 1970s and 1980s Immanuel Wallerstein, Eric Wolf, Andre Gunder Frank,
and Samir Amin invented world-systems theory to explain the "rise of
the West" beginning in the fifteenth century. This theory was a radical
revision of the standard interpretation of the rise of the West which proposed
that Western Europe's rising wealth and imperial expansion was due to changes
- economic, social, demographic, cultural and political changes - within Europe.
2. Columbus and the Age of Discovery
In 1992 people all around the world as well as historians discussed and debated
the significance of 1492. In 1892 historians as well as the public saw Columbus
as one of the greatest heroes of world history and viewed the discovery of
America not only as historically significant but of enormous positive value
for America and the world. During the quincentennial one hundred years later
the issues were much more complicated and the historiography more complex.
3. The Epic of Greater America
Herbert Bolton during the 1930s and 1940s sought to encourage historians to
study all of the Americas - Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, British and French
America - as one unit. Bolton argued that common historical problems and developments
affected the Americas and that study of the whole would promote better understanding
of each part. The recent historiography of British North America, New France
and colonial Latin America concerns strictly regional issues but also reflects
the rise of an Atlantic perspective.
4. Ethnohistory and Amerindians
For a very long time, Amerindians have been viewed as, in Eric Wolf's memorable
phrase, 'a people without history.' In recent decades, however, ethnohistory
has attempted to put Indians back into history; to show that Indians have
a history and to write history demonstrating that Indians were agents rather
than obstacles of change. Indian historians are also beginning to write the
history of their own peoples.
5. Africans in the Old World and the New
Africans have also been considered a people without history. As peoples in
Africa and slaves in America, Africans have been seen only as victims, never
as agents of history. The transatlantic slave trade linked African, European
and American history in ways that significantly affected the course of each.
Only recently has historiography recognized this fact.
6. The Age of Atlantic Revolutions
During the fifty year period from 1775 to 1825 the Atlantic world was swept
by liberal revolutions from Philadelphia to Paris, and Port au Prince to Buenos
Aires. Historians, however, until recently, have ignored the common characteristics
and focused on each revolution from a national perspective.
Readings
Required Reading:
Alan L. Karras, "The Atlantic World as a Unit of Study," and J .R.
McNeill, "The End of the Old Atlantic World: America, Africa, Europe,
1770-1888," both in Karras and McNeill, eds.,Atlantic American Societies
(London: Routledge, 1992): 1-15 and 245-268; Herbert Bolton, "The Epic
of Greater America," American Historical Review, 38:3 (April 1933):
448-74; Silvio Zavala, "A General View of the Colonial History of the
New World," American Historical Review, 66:4 (July 1961): 91329;
Merrill Jensen, "The Colonial Phase," in C. Vann Woodward, ed.,
The Comparative Approach to American History (1968): 18-33. The above
required reading for all groups is located on reserve at the library.
Topical Reading: The following articles and chapters for each topic
are located in the library in the journals and books indicated by their titles.
It is the student's responsibility to find and look up these readings. The
synthesis essay should be read first as a general overview of the historical
topic. The review essays do not have to be read in any order. I would strongly
recommend photocopying the readings for your topic and taking good notes when
you read each one. The copies of the readings and analytical notes will be
useful when your group discusses the issues and when you write your essay.
1. The Modern World-System and the Rise of the West
Synthesis essay:
William H. McNeill, "The Changing Shape of World History", History
and Theory, 34:4 (1995): 8-26.
Review essays:
F. Mauro, "Towards an 'Intercontinental Model': European Overseas Expansion
between 1500 and 1800," The Economic History Review, XIV: 1 (1961):
1-17.
Ralph Davis, "Western Europe: 1460-1560," Chapter 2 in The Rise
of the Atlantic Economies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973): 15-36.
Daniel Chirot, "The Rise of the West," American Sociological
Review, 50 (April 1985): 181-195.
Daniel Chirot, "World-System Theory,"Annual Review of Sociology,
8 (1982): 81-106.
Patrick O'Brien, "European Economic Development: The Contribution of
the Periphery," Economic History Review, 35:1 (February 1982):
1-18.
Robert S. DuPlessis, "The Partial Transition to World-Systems Analysis
in Early Modem European History," Radical History Review, 39 (September
1987).
Daniel Chirot, "The World System of Immanuel Wallerstein: Sociology and
Politics as History:" in Theda Skocpol, ed., Vision and Method in
Historical Sociology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
Theda Skocpol, "Wallerstein's World Capitalist System: A Theoretical
and Historical Critique," American Journal of Sociology, 82 (1977):
1075-90.
Stanley Aronowitz, "A Metatheoretical Critique of Immanuel Wallerstein's
The Modem World System," Theory and Society, 19 (1981): 503-20.
Angus McDonald, Jr., "Wallerstein's World Economy: How Seriously Should
We Take It?"Journal of Asian Studies, 38:3 (1979): 535-40.
John R. Hall, "World-System Holism and Colonial Brazilian Agriculture:
A Critical Case Analysis," Latin American Research Review, 19:2
(1984): 43-70.
William McNeill, "Wallerstein's Vision of Past and Future," Diplomatic
History, 18 (Spring 1994): 269-76.
Victor Lieberman, "Abu-Lughod's Egalitarian World Order: A Review Essay,"
Comparative Studies in Society and History, (1993): 544-550.
2. Columbus and the Discovery of America
Synthesis essay:
Alfred Crosby, "Reassessing 1492," American Quarterly, 41:4
(December 1989): 661-69.
Review essays:
Frederick Hoxie, "Discovery America: An Introduction," Journal
of American History, 79 (1992).
Martin Torodash, "Columbus Historiography Since 1939," Hispanic
American Historical Review, (November 1966): 409-428.
James Axtell, "Columbian Encounters: Beyond 1992," The William
and Mary Quarterly, 49 (April 1992): 335-61.
James Axtell, "Europeans, Indians, and the Age of Discovery in American
History I Textbooks," American Historical Review, XCII (1987):
621-32.
Peter C. Mancall, 'The Age of Discovery," Reviews in American History,
26: 1 (March I 1998): 26-53.
Ida Altman, 'The Contact of Cultures: Perspectives on the Quincentenary,"
American Historical Review, 99 (1994): 478-503.
John Lamer, 'The .Certainty of Columbus: Some Recent Studies,"History:
The Journal of the Historical Association, 73 (February 1988).
Wendy R. Childs, "1492-1494: Columbus and the Discovery of America,"
Economic History Review, XLVIII:4 (1995): 754-68.
D. West, "Christopher Columbus and his Enterprise to the Indies: Scholarship
of the Last Quarter Century," The William and Mary Quarterly,
49 (1992): 254- 77.
G. V. Scammell, 'The New World Revisited," The Historical Journal,
23:3 (1980): 717- 27.
James E. Davis and Sharyl Davis Hawke, "Seeds of Change:
Cutting-Edge Knowledge and the Columbian Quincenterary," Social Education,
56 (October 1992).
Gerald Vi zenor, "Christopher Columbus: Lost Havens in the Ruins of Representation,"
The American lndian Quarterly, 16 (Fall 1992): 521-33.
Fred A. Lopez, "The Mysterious History of Columbus," Latin American
Perspectives, 19 , (Summer 1992): 104-111.
Alfred W. Crosby, "The Columbian Voyages, the Columbian Exchange, and
Their Historians," Essays on Global and Comparative History, American
Historical Association, 1987.
Gary Wills, "Man of the Year," The New York Review of Books,
November 21, 1991: 12-18.
3. The Epic of Greater America
Synthesis essays:
Herbert Bolton, "The Epic of Greater America," American Historical
Review, 38:3 (April 1933): 448-474 and Silvio Zavala, "A General
View of the Colonial History of the New World," American Historical
Review, 66:4 (July 1961): 913-29.
Review essays:
Ian K. Steele, "Exploding Colonial American History: Amerindian, Atlantic,
and Global Perspectives," Reviews in American History, 26 (1998):
70-95.
Gordon Wood, "A Century of Writing Early American History," American
Historical Review, 100 (1995): 678-96.
James Axtell, "A North American Perspective for Colonial History,"
The History Teacher, XII (1979): 549-62.
Nicolas Canny, "The British Atlantic World," The Historical Journal,
33:2 (1990): 479-97.
Graeme Wynn, "Atlantic Perspectives: A Review Essay," Canadian
Historical Review, LXIX:3 (1988): 340-51.
Robert M. Bliss, "Paradigms Lost? British-American Colonial History and
the Encyclopedia of the North American Colonies," Journal ofAmerican
Studies, 29:3 (1995): 441-51.
John C. Rule, "The Old Regime in America: A Review of Recent Interpretations
of France
in America," The William and Mary Quarterly, XIX (October 1962):
575-600.
Ronald Ruden, "Revisionism and the Search for a Normal Society: A Critique
of Recent Quebec Historiography," Canadian Historical Review,
73 (1992): 30-61.
John E. Kicza, "The Social and Ethnic Historiography of Colonial Latin
America: The Last Twenty Years," The William and Mary Quarterly,
XLV:3 (July 1988): 453-488.
Benjamin Keen, "Main Currents in United States Writings on Colonial Spanish
America, 1884-1984," Hispanic American Historical Review, 65 (November
1985): 657-82.
James Lockhart, "The Social History of Colonial Latin America: Evolution
and Potential," Latin American Research Review, 7 (1972): 4-41.
Marcello Carmagnari, "The Inertia of Clio: The Social History of Colonial
Mexico," Latin American Research Review, 20: 1 (1985): 149-66.
Frederic Mauro, "Recent Works on the Political Economy of Brazil in the
Portuguese Empire,"Latin American Research Review, 19:1 (1984):
87-105.
William A. Green, "Caribbean Historiography, 1600-1900," Journal
of Interdisciplinary History, VII:3 (Winter 1977): 509-30.
4. Ethnohistory and Amerindians
Synthesis essay:
Neil Salisbury, "The Indians' Old World: Native Americans and the Coming
of Europeans," The William and Mary Quarterly, LIII:3 (July 1996):
435-458.
Review essavs:
Calvin Martin, "Ethnohistory: A Better Way to Write Indian History,"
Western Historical Quarterly, IX (1978): 41-56.
Francis Jennings, "A Growing Partnership: Historians, Anthropologists,
and American Indian History," Ethnohistory, XXIX (1982): 21-34.
Daniel K. Richter, "Whose Indian History?" The William and Mary
Quarterly, (April 1993): 379-93.
James H. Merrell, "Some Thoughts on Colonial Historians and American
Indians," The William and Mary Quarterly, (January 1989): 94-119.
David Stannard, "The Invisible People of Early American History,"
American Quarterly, 39 (Winter 1987): 649-55.
Bernard W. Sheehan,,"Indian-White Relations in Early America: A Review
Essay," The William and Mary Quarterly, XXVI (1969): 267-86.
James Axtell, "The Ethnohistory of Early America: A Review Essay,"
The William and Mary Quarterly, XXXV (1978): 110-44.
Roger Nichols, "Recent Writings on American Indian History," Canadian
Journal of History, 19 (August 1984): 240-44.
David Edmunds, "Native Americans, New Voices: American Indian History,
1895-1995," American Historical Review, 100 (1995): 717-40.
H.C. Porter, "Reflections on the Ethnohistory of Early Colonial North
America," Journal of American Studies, XVI (1982):243-54.
Bruce G. Trigger, "The Historians' Indian: Native Americans in Canadian
Historical Writing from Charlevoix to the Present," Canadian Historical
Review, LXVII (1986)
Karen Spalding, "The Colonial Indian: Past and Future Research Perspectives,"
Latin American Research Review, 7 (1972): 47-76.
John V. Murra, "Current Research and Prospects in Andean Ethnohistory,"
Latin American Research Review, 5 (1970): 3-36.
John E. Kicza, "Recent Books on Ethnohistory and Ethnic Relations in
Colonial Mexico," Latin American Research Review, 30:3 (1995):
239-253.
5. Africans in the Old World and the New
Synthesis essay:
Philip D. Curtin, "The African Diaspora," Historical Reflections/Reflexions
Historiques, 6:1 (Summer 1979): 1-17.
Review essays:
Frederick Cooper, "The Problem of Slavery in African Studies," Journal
of African History, 20 (1979).
J.D. Fage, "Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Context of West African
History," Journal of African History, 10 (1969): 393-404.
Paul E. Lovejoy, "The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on Africa: A
Review of the Literature," Journal of African History, 30 (1989):
365-94.
Light Townsend Cummins, "Keeping Score: Winners and Losers in the Transatlantic
Slave Trade," Reviews in American History, 21:3 (September 1993):
379-84.
Arnold A. Sio, "Interpretations of Slavery: The Slave Status in the Americas,"
Comparative Studies of Society and History, VII (1965): 289-308.
David Brion Davis, "Slavery and the Post-World War II Historians,"
Daedalus, 103:2 (Spring 1974): 1-16.
Peter Kolchin, "Some Recent Works on Slavery Outside the United States:
An American Perspective," Comparative Studies in Society and History,
28 (October 1986): 767-77.
Frederick P. Bowser, "The African in Colonial Spanish America: Reflections
on Research Achievements and Priorities," Latin American Research
Review, 7: 1 (1972): 77-94.
Orlando Patterson, "Recent Studies on Caribbean Slavery and the Atlantic
Slave Trade," Latin American Research Review, 17:3 (1982): 251-75.
D.R. Murray, "The Slave Trade and Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean,"
Latin American Research Review, 21:1 (1986): 202-215.
D.R. Murray, "Slavery and the Slave Trade: New Comparative Approaches,"
Latin American Research Review, 28: 1 (1993): 150-161.
David Richardson, "Across the Desert and the Sea: Trans-Saharan and Atlantic
Slavery, 1500-1900," The Historical Journal, 38:1 (1995): 195-204.
David Brion Davis, "A Big Business," The New York Review of Books,
July 11, 1998: 50-53.
6. The Age of Atlantic Revolutions
Synthesis essays:
Philip D. Curtin, "The Democratic Revolution in the Atlantic Basin,"
in Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990): 144 -57 and Lester D. Langley, "Introduction,"
and "Epilogue," in Langley, The Americas in the Age of Revolution,
1750-1850 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996): 1-10,285-87.
Review essays:
Edmund S. Morgan, "The American Revolution: Revisions in Need of Revising,"
The William and Mary Quarterly, 14 (1957): 3-15.
Gordon S. Wood, "Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution,"
The William and Mary Quarterly, 23 (1966): 3-32.
M.A. Kaplanoff, "England, America and the American Revolution,"
The Historical Journal, 21:2 (1978): 409-27.
--"'Now Wait for Last Year': Historians, the American Colonies, and the
Revolution," The Historical Journal, 23:4 (1980): 949-66.
Marc Egnal and Joseph A. Ernst, "An Economic Interpretation of the American
Revolution," The William and Mary Quarterly, 29 (1972): 3-32.
Thomas C. Barrow,"The American Revolution as a Colonial War of Independence,"
The William and Mary Quarterly, 25 (1968): 452-64.
J.R. Pole, "Slavery and Revolution," The Historical Journal,
20:2 (1977): 503-13.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, "An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution
as a Non-event," in Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production
of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995): 70-107, 167-176.
Nathan Irvin Huggins, Review of From Rebellion to Revolution,' The New
Republic, January 19, 1980: 35-36.
Edward Countryman, "Indians, the Colonial Order, and the Social Significance
of the American Revolution," The William and Mary Quarterly, LIII:2
(April 1996): 342-78.
Charles C. Griffin, "Economic and Social Aspects of the Era of Spanish-American
Independence," Hispanic American Historical Review, 29:2 (May
1949): 170-87.
Robert Humphrey's, "The Historiography of the Spanish American Revolutions,"
Hispanic American Historical Review, 36 (February 1956): 81-93.
Eric Van Young, "Recent Anglophone Scholarship on Mexico and Central
America in the Age of Revolution (1750-1850)," Hispanic American Historical
Review, 65:4 (1985): 725- 43.
Leon G. Cambell, "Recent Research on Andean Peasant Revolts, 1750-1820,"
Latin American Research Review, 14: 1 (1979): 3-49.
© 2001 by The President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Created November 2002.