The Atlantic World and Virginia, 1550-1624 - (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American Histo) by Peter C Mancall (Paperback)

About the Book

Essays from an international conference entitled The Atlantic world and Virginia, 1550-1624, held in Williamsburg, Va., Mar. 4-7, 2004.

Book Synopsis

In response to the global turn in scholarship on colonial and early modern history, the eighteen essays in this volume provide a fresh and much-needed perspective on the wider context of the encounter between the inhabitants of precolonial Virginia and the English. This collection offers an interdisciplinary consideration of developments in Native America, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Chesapeake, highlighting the mosaic of regions and influences that formed the context and impetus for the English settlement at Jamestown in 1607. The volume reflects an understanding of Jamestown not as the birthplace of democracy in America but as the creation of a European outpost in a neighborhood that included Africans, Native Americans, and other Europeans.

With contributions from both prominent and rising scholars, this volume offers far-ranging and compelling studies of peoples, texts, places, and conditions that influenced the making of New World societies. As Jamestown marks its four-hundredth anniversary, this collection provides provocative material for teaching and launching new research.

Contributors:
Philip P. Boucher, University of Alabama, Huntsville
Peter Cook, Nipissing University
J. H. Elliott, University of Oxford
Andrew Fitzmaurice, University of Sydney
Joseph Hall, Bates College
Linda Heywood, Boston University
James Horn, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
E. Ann McDougall, University of Alberta
Peter C. Mancall, University of Southern California
Philip D. Morgan, Johns Hopkins University
David Northrup, Boston College
Marcy Norton, The George Washington University
James D. Rice, State University of New York, Plattsburgh
Daniel K. Richter, University of Pennsylvania
David Harris Sacks, Reed College
Benjamin Schmidt, University of Washington
Stuart B. Schwartz, Yale University
David S. Shields, University of South Carolina
Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, McGill University
James H. Sweet, University of Wisconsin, Madison
John Thornton, Boston University

Review Quotes

"[A] very fine edited collection. . . . A rewarding read and an important reminder that the first permanent English settlement in North America survived." -- Journal of British Studies

"A Herculean task of integration. . . . [Mancall] carries off this task with sophistication and grace." -- Terrae Incognitae

"An impressive volume. . . . Deserve[s] high praise." -- Virginia Magazine

"Studded with sparkling essays, some of which should become required reading." -- Journal of Southern History

"Superb." -- H-Net

"The essays . . . do a fine job of explicating parts of the economic, political, scientific, and ideological milieu out of which the Virginia experiment emerged." -- Clio

"This collection succeeds in dramatically broadening our perspective on the global context of early American history. . . . A magnificent array of the best scholars working in the field today, and these essays will only contribute to their status." -- Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

"With contributions from many of the most preeminent historians in the field, this work belongs in every college/university library." -- CHOICE