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Graduate Colloquium
The British Atlantic 1500-1800 - History 949
Professor Eliga Gould
University of New Hampshire - Spring 2000
ehg@christa.unh.edu
Assigned Readings. (available at both the University Bookstore and the Durham Book Exchange.)
Anderson, Fred. A People's Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in
the Seven Years' War (1984).
Bailyn, Bernard. The Peopling of British America (1986).
Blackburn, Robin. The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to
the Modern, 1492-1800 (1997).
Brown, Kathleen. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender,
Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (1996)
Bushman, Richard. The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (1992).
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (1992).
Gould, Eliga H. The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in
the Age of the American Revolution (2000).
Greene, Jack P. Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early
Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture (1988).
Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World
(1991).
Langley, Lester D. The Americas in the Age of Revolution (1996).
Morgan, Philip D. Diversity and Unity in Early North America (1993).
Nash, Gary B. The Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins
of the American Revolution, abridged ed. (1986).
Rediker, Marcus. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen,
Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750 (1987).
White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the
Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (1991).
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard,
Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (1990).
Reserve: All selections on Reserve are marked [R] in the Outline below.
Course Description.
This colloquium provides an introduction to the historical literature on the British Atlantic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Over the course of the semester, we will be talking about the various social, political, economic and cultural features that scholars attribute to the societies of the English-speaking Atlantic. As part of these discussions, we will consider what belonging to this empire meant for men and women on both sides of the ocean, how Britain's overseas expansion affected the situation of indigenous popula-tions in Africa, Ireland and North America, and the tensions that inevitably arose in metropolitan and provincial perceptions of how the empire should be governed. Along with these specific topics, we will spend some time discussing how the general field of Atlantic history has evolved in recent years and the various ways in which the growing interest in Atlantic studies has affected both British and American history.
Organization and Requirements.
(a) Class Participation.
Class participation is an essential part of the course, and the first of the colloquium's requirements is to come to each meeting having completed all the reading and prepared to engage constructively in group discussions. In addition, you will each have the opportunity to help set the agenda for one of the weekly discussions. Your presentation should be based on a five-page review essay of the week's assigned reading (discussed below) and should lay out questions that the other members of the colloquium can discuss. Because there are fewer weeks than there are members of the seminar, some weeks will have two presenters. Taken together, your participation in class and oral presentation will account for 20% of your total grade. I will evaluate each on a system of "checks," with a "check" sig-nifying full credit, a "check plus" outstanding work, and "check minus" work that is carelessly prepared or substandard in any other way.
(b) Review Essay.
In advance of the class when you make your presentation, you are each expected to write a review essay on the assigned reading for that week of approximately 5 double-spaced typed pages. These essays can follow a number of formats. In addition to summarizing the arguments of the weekly reading, you may use your essay to respond to questions that the books and articles seem to raise, relate the assigned readings to issues and topics from other weeks, or even draw on insights from adjacent fields. You may also discover that your response to the readings occasionally changes as a result of our discussions in the colloquium, in which case I welcome you to revise them with marginal notes. The important thing is to write a coherent, well organized essay that engages with the readings in a lively and analytical fashion. I will assign each essay a letter grade, and that grade will count for 30% of your total grade.
(c) Historiographical Essay.
The colloquium's final requirement is to write an essay of approximately 15 pages that discusses a particular issue or problem in the historiography of Atlantic studies in Britain and/or America. Although you may make liberal use of the assigned readings, your essays should also reflect a substantial amount of outside reading. In choosing your topic, you are free to write on anything within the broad parameters set by the colloquium. The paper will count for 50% of the final grade and is due in the History Department office by noon on Monday, May 8. (Anyone making a presentation and writing a paper for the final class meeting on May 5 will be allowed to turn the final paper in on May 12.)
(d) Incompletes.
As a rule, it is in your own best interest to complete all written assignments on time; however, if you find you are unable to finish the final historiographical essay by May 8, I will grant you an Incomplete, provided you speak with me in advance. But please note that the University Registrar will automatically award an "F" for any Incomplete that has not been converted to a letter grade by a specified deadline during the Fall Semester. If you receive an Incomplete, the responsibility for keeping track of this deadline and finishing all the course requirements on time is yours. You should also bear in mind that if you turn in a paper late, you may have to wait a consid-erable amount of time before you get it back with a grade; also, I generally make only the briefest written comments on late papers.
Course Outline
Jan 21 Introduction
Jan 28 Overview
Reading: J. G. A. Pocock, "The Limits and Divisions of British History:
In Search of the Unknown Subject," American Historical Review,
87 (1982), [R]; Bernard Bailyn, "The Idea of Atlantic History,"
Itinerario, 20 (1996), [R]; Jack P. Greene, "Beyond Power: Paradigm
Subversion and Reformulation and the Re-Creation of the Early Modern Atlantic
World," in Greene, Interpreting Early America (1996), [R].
Feb 4 Narratives of Exploration and Settlement
Reading: Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions; Nicholas Canny,
"The Ideology of English Colonization: From Ireland to America,"
WMQ (1973), [R]; Anthony Pagden, "The Struggle for Legitimacy
and the Image of Em-pire in the Atlantic to c. 1700," in Nicholas Canny,
ed., The Origins of Empire (1998), [R].
Feb 11 European Movement and Migration
Reading: Bernard Bailyn, The Peopling of British America (1986); Nicholas
Canny, ed., Europeans on the Move: Studies on European Migration, 1500-1800
(1994), chs. 4-6, 10, [R]; A. G. Roeber, "'The Origin of Whatever Is
Not English among Us': The Dutch-speaking and the German-speaking Peoples
of Colonial British America," in Bailyn and Morgan, eds., Strangers
within the Realm (1991), [R].
Feb 18 The Rise of Slavery
Reading: Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery, intro.,
chs. 1, 6, 8-12, epilogue; Edmund S. Morgan, "Slavery and Freedom: The
American Paradox," Journal of American History, 59 (1972), [R];
Ira Berlin, "Time, Space, and the Evolution of Afro-American Society
on British Mainland North America," in Morgan, ed., Diversity and
Unity.
Feb 25 The Clash of Empires
Reading: Fred Anderson, A People's Army; Eliga H. Gould, The Persistence
of Empire, intro and chs. 1-4; Fred Anderson, The Crucible of War:
The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766
(2000), intro and excerpts (Amazon.com), [R]; John M. Murrin, "Political
Development," in Greene and Pole, eds., Colonial British America (1984),
[R].
INSTEAD OF THE REGULARLY SCHEDULED FRIDAY MEETING, THE COLLOQUIUM WILL ATTEND A ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION WITH FRED ANDERSON AT THE CHARLES WARREN CENTER FOR STUDIES IN AMERICAN HISTORY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, NOON, FEB 25. DETAILS TBA.
FRED ANDERSON WILL ALSO BE SPEAKING ABOUT HIS NEW BOOK, THE CRUCIBLE OF WAR, AT HARVARD AT 7 PM, THURSDAY EVENING, FEB 24. THE TALK IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, AND ALL MEMBERS OF THE COLLOQUIUM ARE ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND.
Mar 3 Native Peoples
Reading: Richard White, The Middle Ground; James Merrell, "'The
Customes of Our Countrey,'" in Morgan, ed., in Diversity and Unity;
Edward Countryman, "Indians, the Colonial Order, and the Social Significance
of the Ameri-can Revolution," WMQ (1996), [R].
Mar 10 Oceans
Reading: Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea; Anne
Pérotin-Dumon, "The Pirate and the Emperor: Power and the Law
on the Seas, 1450-1850," in James D. Tracy, ed., The Political Economy
of Merchant Empires (1991), [R]; Daniel Baugh, "Maritime Strength
and Atlantic Commerce," in Lawrence Stone, ed., An Imperial State
at War, [R].
Mar 17 SPRING BREAK - NO CLASS
Mar 24 Social Structures
Reading: Jack P. Greene, Pursuits of Happiness; Gary B. Nash, The
Urban Crucible: The Northern Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution
(1986), pref., chs. 4-5; Harold Perkin, The Origins of Modern English Society,
1780-1880 (1969), ch. 2, [R].
Mar 31 Gender
Reading: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale; Kathleen Brown,
Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power
in Colonial Virginia (1996), chs. 1-3; Amanda Vickery, "Golden Age
to Sepa-rate Spheres? A Review of the Categories and Chronology of English
Women's History," Historical Journal, 36 (1993), [R].
Apr 7 Religion and Revivalism
Reading: Linda Colley, Britons, ch. 1; Timothy Hall, Contested Boundaries;
Susan O'Brien, "A Transatlantic Com-munity of Saints," AHR
(1986), [R]; Boyd Stanley Schlenther, "Religious Faith and Commercial
Empire," in P. J. Marshall, ed., The Eighteenth Century, vol.
2 of The Oxford History of the British Empire (1998), [R].
Apr 14 Consumption
Reading: Richard Bushman, The Refinement of America, part I; T. H.
Breen, "'Baubles of Britain,'" in Morgan, ed., Diversity and
Unity; David D. Hall, "The Uses of Literacy in New England, 1600-1850,"
in Hall, Cultures of Print (1996), [R].
BECAUSE OF A CONFLICT, CLASS FOR APR 14 WILL NEED TO BE RESCHEDULED. DETAILS TBA.
Apr 21 Empires into Nations
Reading: Colley, Britons, intro., chs. 2-4, 8, and conclusion; Eliga
H. Gould, "A Virtual Nation: Greater Britain and the Imperial Legacy
of the American Revolution," AHR (1999); John M. Murrin, "A
Roof Without Walls: The Dilemma of American National Identity," in Richard
Beeman, et al., eds., Beyond Confederation: Origins of the Con-stitution
and American National Identity (1987), [R]; T. H. Breen, "Ideology
and Nationalism on the Eve of the American Revolution: Revisions Once More
in Need of Revising," JAH (1997), [R].
Apr 28 GUEST LECTURE: Jack P. Greene (Johns Hopkins University), "Law and Identity in Colonial British North Amer-ica," Dimond Library, Room 343.
ALTHOUGH ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY FOR MEMBERS OF THE COLLOQUIUM, PROF. GREENE'S LECTURE IS OPEN TO THE REST OF THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT, AS WELL AS MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC.
May 5 Legacies
Reading: Lester D. Langley, The Americas in the Age of Revolution (1996);
John M. Murrin, "Beneficiaries of Catastrophe: The English Colonists
in America," in Morgan, ed., Diversity and Unity; R. R. Palmer,
The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and
America, 1760-1800, vol. 1, The Challenge (1959), pref., chs. 1 and 9,
[R].
HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY DUE IN HISTORY DEPARTMENT OFFICE BY NOON,
MONDAY, MAY 8
© 2002 by The President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Created November 2002.