TRANSFORMATIONS: The Atlantic World in the Late Seventeenth Century

This spring the Atlantic History Seminar will host a conference on the transformations that overtook the Atlantic World in the late seventeenth century. The organizing principle of the conference is that the late seventeenth century saw a consolidation of new ideas and structures that had been building up in the period since discovery, and that this consolidation signaled a "paradigm shift" in the way people viewed their world. The last decades of the seventeenth century saw, among other events, some of the harshest climatological effects of the "Little Ice Age"; the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the development of slave codes; the founding of the Royal African Company, the Royal Society, and the Bank of England; the growth of religious dissent; the rise of the Dutch and the end of Spanish hegemony; in some areas, sustainable populations (and hence the first creole generations); the rise of the plantation system and the shift from indentured servants to slave labor; changes in money and finance and sufficient New World stability to support a fledgling consumer society.

A distinguished group of speakers, approaching the topic from different angles and using different materials, will address the idea of "Transformations" in relation to many spheres of life among the Atlantic peoples. Speakers will include Kenneth Banks, Kathleen Brown, Jorge Caņizares-Esguerra, Alan Gallay, David Hancock, Linda Heywood, Jonathan Israel, Jane Landers, Jennifer Morgan, Steven Pincus, Daniel Richter, Pamela Smith, John Thornton, and Lorena Walsh.

Historians and scholars in related fields at all stages of their careers are invited to attend and join in the discussions. Travel and accommodation expenses will be the responsibility of attendees. There is no fee, but pre-registration by March 15, 2006, is required; a form is available from the link below. The complete program and local arrangements details will also be posted here as soon as they become available.

Organized by Bernard Bailyn, Karen Kupperman, Joseph Miller, and Mark Peterson, the Conference is co-sponsored by the Atlantic History Seminar at Harvard University, the Atlantic History Program at New York University, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the South Atlantic Humanities Center a partnership of VFH, Virginia Tech, and the University of Virginia, and the Colonies Seminar at the University of Iowa.