Abstract
It is not easy to keep track of all the research produced within the historical subfield of Atlantic History. Every year there is a myriad of publications that cover all sorts of topics, ranging from cultural and political to social and economic. That’s why it is important that, from time to time, well-informed, capable historians assemble the pieces of that broad spectrum into a single narrative. There is no doubt that Trevor Burnard fits the bill. The author of several well-known books on slavery and the plantation system, Burnard is Wilberforce Professor of Slavery and Emancipation and Director of the Wilberforce Institute at the University of Hull. He is also the editor in chief of the Oxford Online Bibliography in Atlantic History, a precious bibliographical resource that is duly referenced throughout The Atlantic in World History, 1490-1830.
Right at the start, Burnard stresses that the book is a synthesis rather than a textbook. In other words, ‘it covers themes and main lines of historical interpretations in Atlantic history rather than providing an exhaustive, and very lengthy, summary of everything that happened in this geographical space over a long period’ (p. x).
The book is divided into four parts that are made of 15 chapters in total. Part One deals with the idea of Atlantic History and provides a meaty discussion on the place of the Atlantic in World History. Part Two combines a chronological perspective with different topics that correspond to successive, slightly overlapping periods, covering essential matters such as the Columbian exchange, the subjugation of Native Americans, slavery and slave trade, colonial settlers, the Enlightenment, and the Age of Revolutions, among others. The third part adopts a geographical perspective to analyse, in five chapters, the transformations that the rise of the Atlantic world brought to West Africa, Western Europe, South and Central America and the Caribbean, and North America. A corollary to this part is the chapter entitled ‘Plantations’, which examines the complex interactions, exchanges and transmissions between different Atlantic regions. It also describes, in great detail, some of the most gruesome and violent aspects of the ‘killing machines’ that plantations were. And, lastly, Part Four takes on some essential themes in Atlantic History: war and violence (including the ravages caused by both religious disputes and piracy), the movement of things (merchants, trade, and the primary Atlantic commodities), and the circulation of ideas (from collecting and religion to culture and economics). The book ends somehow abruptly without conclusions; or at least that is how the copy this reviewer read ends (and so does the Kindle version available on Amazon, for that matter). However, on the publisher’s website, it says that the contents of the book include 16 chapters, not 15, and the final one is entitled ‘Conclusion: From the Atlantic World to Globalization to Nationalism’ (other chapters titles also differ). How such an important chapter was left out of the book is anyone’s guess. That it was written after the first edition came out seems unlikely as the book was first published in 2020, a couple of months before this reviewer got hold of a hardback copy.
To a considerable extent, the structure of the book demands that the author returns to critical processes such as slavery, conquest, war and revolution several times throughout the text, hence risking repetition. However, Burnard’s craft as a historian and a writer succeeds in building an integrated narrative rather than a repetitive one. Africa occupies an essential place in the book. After all, ‘one major achievement of Atlantic history is that it brings African history into the historiographical mainstream’ (p. 32). Another of its most salient features, repeatedly emphasised by its practitioners, is that Atlantic history goes beyond national and imperial boundaries. Some scholars disagree, arguing that it is little more than imperial or colonial history under a new brand. And, truth be told, sometimes it is. But Burnard’s book shows that there is plenty of research out there that is undeserving of that criticism, research that sheds light on an array of transnational and trans-imperial developments, which can also be seen from a local vantage point. Furthermore, it would be a mistake to consider the book merely a survey. By guiding us through the most relevant literature on Atlantic history, Burnard reveals how the constituent parts of the oceanic world evolved in conversation with each other and, in the process, his narrative makes a compelling case for the perduring historiographical relevance of the Atlantic paradigm.
Atlantic history, particularly the transnational or circum-Atlantic type (following David Armitage’s taxonomy), demands that the historian master several languages and visit archives and libraries in different countries and continents. Its international quality also raises the question of its geographical reach, which is another source of debate. Does it make sense to see the ocean as a self-contained unit of analysis? Should we be talking about global rather than Atlantic history? Burnard sees both as different and yet complementary until they finally merged. The economic globalisation (measured in international price convergence) that slowly began to materialise from the 1820s as a consequence of technical innovations signalled the coalescence of Atlantic history into global history. But Burnard warns that ‘we should not see the Atlantic World as the beginnings of a global economy, but rather a cultural manifestation in which values from one part of the Atlantic moved to another’ (p. 301).
Although Burnard’s writing is, for the most part, clear and engaging, on spots he shows a tendency to construct long, intricate sentences that do little to facilitate comprehension. Moreover, the book would have benefited from a more thorough copy-editing as several typos and errors mar the text. The book includes further reading lists at the end of each chapter. It also has carefully presented maps and images and an excellent analytical index. Editorial and minor editing problems aside, the book is a valuable synthesis of the most significant literature on Atlantic History that offers an informative, integrated narrative to both students and researchers, including maritime historians.