Atlantic history, with its emphasis on inter-regional developments that transcend national borders, has risen to prominence as a fruitful perspective through which to study the interconnections among Europe, North America, Latin America, and Africa. These original essays present a comprehensive and incisive look at how Atlantic history has been interpreted across time and through a variety of lenses from the fifteenth through the early nineteenth century. Editors Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan have assembled a stellar cast of thirteen international scholars to discuss key areas of Atlantic history, including the British, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, African, and indigenous worlds, as well as the movement of ideas, peoples, and goods. Other contributors assess contemporary understandings of the ocean and present alternatives to the concept itself, juxtaposing Atlantic history with global, hemispheric, and Continental history.

Jack P. Greene is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities Emeritus at Johns Hopkins University.

Philip D. Morgan is Harry C. Black Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University.

• An Introduction: The Present State of Atlantic History


• 1: Joyce E. Chaplin (Harvard University): The Atlantic Ocean and Its Contemporary Meanings, 1492-1808


• Section One: New Atlantic Worlds


• 2: Kenneth J. Andrien (Ohio State University): The Spanish Atlantic System


• 3: A. J. R. Russell-Wood (Johns Hopkins University): The Portuguese Atlantic, 1415-1808


• 4: Trevor Burnard (University of Warwick, UK): The British Atlantic


• 5: Laurent Dubois (Duke University): The French Atlantic


• 6: Benjamin Schmidt (University of Washington): The Dutch Atlantic: Provincialism and Globalism


• Section Two: Old Worlds and the Atlantic


• 7: Amy Turner Bushnell (John Carter Brown Library, RI): Indigenous America and the Limits of the Atlantic World, 1493-1825


• 8: Philip D. Morgan (Johns Hopkins University): Africa and the Atlantic, c. 1450 to c. 1820


• 9: Carla Rahn Phillips (University of Minnesota): Europe and the Atlantic


• Section Three: Competing and Complementary Perspectives


• 10: Peter H. Wood (Duke University): From Atlantic History to Continental History


• 11: Jack P. Greene (Johns Hopkins University emeritus, John Carter Brown Library, RI): Hemispheric History and Atlantic History


• 12: Nicholas Canny (National University of Ireland, Galway): Atlantic History and Global History


• 13: Peter A. Coclanis (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill): Beyond Atlantic History