Christopher Hodson – författare

A bold reinterpretation of French colonialism from its medieval roots to the early nineteenth centuryBetween 1400 and 1800, the people of Europe, Africa, and the Americas grew ever more connected by overseas trade and colonization. Histories of this transformative era have been dominated by Iberian and British experiences, overlooking the vast reach of the pre-Napoleonic French Empire. Yet by the mid-eighteenth century, France claimed nearly a third of North America, ruled over the Caribbean's most profitable and brutal plantations, and controlled a substantial proportion of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In Beyond the Ocean, Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth reveal the significant role that France played in the history of the Atlantic world and the ways the Atlantic shaped France in return. Drawing on expansive original research in multiple languages, they craft an unconventional history of empire that highlights the experiences, priorities, and influence of Native Americans and West Africans, both free and enslaved. French sailors, nuns, smugglers, and weavers also appear as dynamic historical actors who shaped the emerging empire as much as kings and bureaucrats.Driven by compelling individual stories woven into a sweeping chronological narrative, Beyond the Ocean offers a bold new interpretation of French colonialism that recovers the full complexity of a misunderstood empire and reveals its profound significance to the interconnected Atlantic basin and the early modern world.

Late in 1755, an army of British regulars and Massachusetts volunteers completed one of the cruelest, most successful military campaigns in North American history, capturing and deporting seven thousand French-speaking Catholic Acadians from the province of Nova Scotia, and chasing an equal number into the wilderness of eastern Canada. Thousands of Acadians endured three decades of forced migrations and failed settlements that shuttled them to the coasts of South America, the plantations of the Caribbean, the frigid islands of the South Atlantic, the swamps of Louisiana, and the countryside of central France. The Acadian Diaspora tells their extraordinary story in full for the first time, illuminating a long-forgotten world of imperial desperation, experimental colonies, and naked brutality. Using documents culled from archives in France, Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, Christopher Hodson reconstructs the lives of Acadian exiles as they traversed oceans and continents, pushed along by empires eager to populate new frontiers with inexpensive, pliable white farmers. Hodson's compelling narrative situates the Acadian diaspora within the dramatic geopolitical changes triggered by the Seven Years' War. Faced with redrawn boundaries and staggering national debts, imperial architects across Europe used the Acadians to realize radical plans: tropical settlements without slaves, expeditions to the unknown southern continent, and, perhaps strangest of all, agricultural colonies within old regime France itself. In response, Acadians embraced their status as human commodities, using intimidation and even violence to tailor their communities to the superheated Atlantic market for cheap, mobile labor. Through vivid, intimate stories of Acadian exiles and the diverse, transnational cast of characters that surrounded them, The Acadian Diaspora presents the eighteenth-century Atlantic world from a new angle, challenging old assumptions about uprooted peoples and the very nature of early modern empire.

Late in 1755, an army of British regulars and Massachusetts volunteers completed one of the cruelest, most successful military campaigns in North American history, capturing and deporting seven thousand French-speaking Catholic Acadians from the province of Nova Scotia, and chasing an equal number into the wilderness of eastern Canada. Thousands of Acadians endured three decades of forced migrations and failed settlements that shuttled them to the coasts of South America, the plantations of the Caribbean, the frigid islands of the South Atlantic, the swamps of Louisiana, and the countryside of central France. The Acadian Diaspora tells their extraordinary story in full for the first time, illuminating a long-forgotten world of imperial desperation, experimental colonies, and naked brutality. Using documents culled from archives in France, Great Britain, Canada, and the United States, Christopher Hodson reconstructs the lives of Acadian exiles as they traversed oceans and continents, pushed along by empires eager to populate new frontiers with inexpensive, pliable white farmers. Hodson's compelling narrative situates the Acadian diaspora within the dramatic geopolitical changes triggered by the Seven Years' War. Faced with redrawn boundaries and staggering national debts, imperial architects across Europe used the Acadians to realize radical plans: tropical settlements without slaves, expeditions to the unknown southern continent, and, perhaps strangest of all, agricultural colonies within old regime France itself. In response, Acadians embraced their status as human commodities, using intimidation and even violence to tailor their communities to the superheated Atlantic market for cheap, mobile labor. Through vivid, intimate stories of Acadian exiles and the diverse, transnational cast of characters that surrounded them, The Acadian Diaspora presents the eighteenth-century Atlantic world from a new angle, challenging old assumptions about uprooted peoples and the very nature of early modern empire.

Kosa ya Lizo is the story of a young, homeless boy who lives on the streets of Cape Town. He has no family and no money and he sings to passers-by on street corners and outside businesses in the hope of earning some money. One day, a member of a carnival band hears Lizo singing and invites him to join the band. Lizo finally finds a place where he belongs.

Pina ya ga Thato is the story of a young, homeless boy who lives on the streets of Cape Town. He has no family and no money and he sings to passers-by on street corners and outside businesses in the hope of earning some money. One day, a member of a carnival band hears Lizo singing and invites him to join the band. Lizo finally finds a place where he belongs.

Lizo is a young, homeless boy who lives on the streets of Cape Town. He has no family and no money and he sings to passers-by on street corners and outside businesses in the hope of earning some money. One day, a member of a carnival band hears Lizo singing and invites him to join the band. Lizo finally finds a place where he belongs.

Ingoma yaLizo is the story of a young, homeless boy called Lizo who lives on the streets of Cape Town. He has no family and no money and he sings to passers-by on street corners and outside businesses in the hope of earning some money. One day, a member of a carnival band hears Lizo singing and invites him to join the band. Lizo finally finds a place where he belongs.

Iculo lakaLizo is a young, homeless boy who lives on the streets of Cape Town. He has no family and no money and he sings to passers-by on street corners and outside businesses in the hope of earning some money. One day, a member of a carnival band hears Lizo singing and invites him to join the band. Lizo finally finds a place where he belongs.

Luimbo Iwa Lizo is about a young, homeless boy called Lizo who lives on the streets of Cape Town. He has no family and no money and he sings to passers-by on street corners and outside businesses in the hope of earning some money. One day, a member of a carnival band hears Lizo singing and invites him to join the band. Lizo finally finds a place where he belongs.

The story 'Risimu ra Lizo' is about a young, homeless boy called Lizo who lives on the streets of Cape Town. He has no family and no money and he sings to passers-by on street corners and outside businesses in the hope of earning some money. One day, a member of a carnival band hears Lizo singing and invites him to join the band. Lizo finally finds a place where he belongs.

The Little Library Life Skills reading series focuses on promoting life skills to young learners. Lizo se liedjie' is the story of a young, homeless boy called Lizo who lives on the streets of Cape Town. He has no family and no money and he sings to passers-by on street corners and outside businesses in the hope of earning some money. One day, a member of a carnival band hears Lizo singing and invites him to join the band. Lizo finally finds a place where he belongs.

Ingoma kaLizo is the story of a young, homeless boy who lives on the streets of Cape Town. He has no family and no money and he sings to passers-by on street corners and outside businesses in the hope of earning some money. One day, a member of a carnival band hears Lizo singing and invites him to join the band. Lizo finally finds a place where he belongs.