On the Atlantic in World History

This is actually a great, recent introduction to Atlantic history. Because the title is The Atlantic in World History, I thought that Burnard was going to integrate it with systems outside of the Atlantic (what about connections with the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, for instance?). That is not what this book is.

Instead, it’s an undergraduate level-survey to the field in very large terms. The text starts out with two chapters on the historiography of the Atlantic and an explanation of what “Atlantic history” means (it highlights connections between Africa, Europe, and the Americas). The second part gives a very brief, survey outline of the chronological history: the Columbian Exchange, the “Iberian Lake,” “the Old World responds,” “settler societies,” “revolutions.” From my own experience, that seems like a good overview, but it does highlight the agency of Europeans over indigenous peoples or Africans. The third part is an overview of Atlantic places: He starts with a discussion of West Africa, then moves on to Western Europe, South America and the Caribbean, North America, and finally (I was impressed to see) an entire chapter on the plantation system. To me, that chapter works so well, because it highlights the extent to which the Atlantic plantation is a specifically Atlantic (obviously) structure that relies on connections from the Atlantic’s constituent parts. Finally, the book concludes with a part offering an overview of major themes: Violence and war (including piracy and slavery), trade, the movement of peoples, etc.—you can feel how recent the book is through the author’s discussion of material culture, which is a sub-discipline that has really taken off over the past half decade.

All said, this is a welcome, undergraduate-level summary of the field of Atlantic History (not the Atlantic in World History).