Anglo-America in the Transatlantic World – serie

How did events and ideas from elsewhere in the British empire influence development in the thirteen American colonies? What was the effect of the American Revolution on the wider Atlantic world? In Empire and Nation, leading historians reconsider the American Revolution as a transnational event, with many sources and momentous implications for Ireland, Africa, the West Indies, Canada, and Britain itself. The opening section situates the origins of the American Revolution in the commercial, ethnic, and political ferment that characterized Britain's Atlantic empire at the close of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). The empire then experienced extraordinary changes, ranging from the first stirrings of nationalism in Ireland to the dramatic expansion of British rule in Canada, Africa, and India. The second part focuses on the rebellion of the thirteen colonies-touching on slavery and ethnicity, the changing nature of religious faith, and ideas about civil society and political organization. Finally, contributors examine the changes wrought by the American Revolution both within Britain's remaining imperial possessions and among the other states in the emerging "concert of Europe."The essays in Empire and Nation challenge facile assumptions about the "exceptional" character of the republic's founding moment, even as they invite readers to think anew about the complex ways in which the Revolution reshaped both American society and the Atlantic world.

While scholars of traditional imperial history see the formation of the larger British Atlantic world as a consequence of competing European powers' efforts at nation-building, Atlantic historians see the transatlantic empire shaped more by the motives of a wide variety of subnational groups. Elizabeth Mancke and Carole Shammas have compiled a volume that reflects these different viewpoints concerning the transatlantic experience during Britain's rise to world dominance between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the book's opening chapters, contributors consider the effect of transatlantic emigration, discussing European and African migration and slave trade; the enslavement of Native American peoples; and the ways individuals adapted their national and religious identities in a world of expanding cultural influences.The second section addresses the roles played by trade, religion, ethnicity, and class in linking the Atlantic borders, with essays examining how mariners circulated political and religious news along with trade goods; how British common law supplanted the diverse legal systems of the early colonies; and how Protestant leaders in the colonies challenged the theological assumptions of their European contemporaries. The chapters in the final section address the increasingly complicated legal relationships between the British sovereign and colonial charterholders; the simultaneous establishment of a British colonial government in East Florida and the Royal Gardens of Kew; the popularity of imperial landscape art in eighteenth-century Britain; and the British roots of Pennsylvania Quakers. The Creation of the British Atlantic World provides insight into the competing forces that forged the Atlantic world as well as the reciprocal relationships between the growing British Empire and the individuals, groups, and subnations within that empire.

Never truly a "new world"entirely detached from the home countries of its immigrants, colonial America, over the generations, became a model of transatlantic culture. Colonial society was shaped by the conflict between colonists' need to adapt to the American environment and their desire to perpetuate old world traditions or to imitate the charismatic model of the British establishment. In the course of colonial history, these contrasting impulses produced a host of distinctive cultures and identities. In this impressive new collection, prominent scholars of early American history explore this complex dynamic of accommodation and replication to demonstrate how early American societies developed from the intersection of American and Atlantic influences. The volume, edited by Robert Olwell and Alan Tully, offers fresh perspectives on colonial history and on early American attitudes toward slavery and ethnicity, native Americans, and the environment, as well as colonial social, economic, and political development. It reveals the myriad ways in which American colonists were the inhabitants and subjects of a wider Atlantic world.Cultures and Identities in Colonial British America, one of a three-volume series under the editorship of Jack P. Greene, aims to give students of Atlantic history a "state of the field"survey by pursuing interesting lines of research and raising new questions. The entire series, "Anglo-America in the Transatlantic World,"engages the major organizing themes of the subject through a collection of high-level, debate-inspiring essays, inviting readers to think anew about the complex ways in which the Atlantic experience shaped both American societies and the Atlantic world itself.

The essays in Empire and Nation challenge facile assumptions about the "exceptional" character of the republic's founding moment, even as they invite readers to think anew about the complex ways in which the Revolution reshaped both American society and the Atlantic world. How did events and ideas from elsewhere in the British empire influence development in the thirteen American colonies? And what was the effect of the American Revolution on the wider Atlantic world? In Empire and Nation, leading historians reconsider the American Revolution as a transnational event, with many sources and momentous implications for Ireland, Africa, the West Indies, Canada, and Britain itself. The opening section of the book situates the origins of the American Revolution in the commercial, ethnic, and political ferment that characterized Britain's Atlantic empire at the close of the Seven Years' War. The empire experienced extraordinary changes, ranging from the first stirrings of nationalism in Ireland to the dramatic expansion of British rule in Canada, Africa, and India.The second part focuses on the rebellion of the thirteen colonies, touching on slavery and ethnicity, the changing nature of religious faith, and ideas about civil society and political organization. Finally, contributors examine the changes wrought by the American Revolution both within Britain's remaining imperial possessions and among the other states in the emerging "concert of Europe."

Was the British Atlantic shaped more by imperial rivalries or by the actions of subnational groups with a variety of economic, social, and religious agendas? The Creation of the British Atlantic World analyzes the inter-relationship between these competing explanations for the development of the British Atlantic by examining migration patterns on both the macro and micro level. It also scrutinizes the roles played by trade, religion, ethnicity, and class in linking Atlantic borders and the increasingly complicated legal, intellectual and emotional relationship between the British sovereign and colonial charter holders. Its contributors include: Joyce E. Chaplin, John E. Crowley, David Barry Gaspar, April Lee Hatfield, James Horn, Ray A. Kea, Elizabeth Mancke, Philip D. Morgan, William M. Offutt, Robert Olwell, Carole Shammas, Wolfgang Splitter, Mark L. Thompson, Karin Wulf, and, Avihu Zakai.