The Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800

Catalog description

Introduces students to the major topics, themes, and debates in early modern Atlantic history using the Atlantic World as a category of analysis. Atlantic history diverges from traditional imperial and state histories of the western hemisphere in recognizing that the Americas were shaped by all of the peoples of the Atlantic basinnot just Europeans but Africans and Native Americans as well. Accordingly, this course emphasizes the contacts, interchanges, and conflicts between the different groups that inhabited the Atlantic World, offering new insights into the cultural, social, political, and economic processes that transformed the early Americas between 1400 and 1800 and laid the groundwork for contemporary American society.