History - HSTA 309: The Atlantic World 1492-1763: Finding Books

This history of early European colonial efforts in North America (specifically, the portion north of Mexico and the Caribbean) examines why three colonies-St. Augustine, Jamestown and Quebec-succeeded where many before them had failed. Chapters cover Columbus' exploration and the Treaty of Tordesillas; other Spanish explorers and settlements in the New World; French attempts at settlement prior to Quebec; early English settlements, including Roanoke; failed settlements dating to the Norse enclaves on Greenland; and in-depth studies of the three colonies that survived.

Bernard Bailyn gives us a compelling account of the first great transit of people from Britain, Europe, and Africa to British North America, their involvements with each other, and their struggles with the indigenous peoples of the eastern seaboard.

In The Specter of Salem, Gretchen A. Adams reveals the many ways that the Salem witch trials loomed over the American collective memory from the Revolution to the Civil War and beyond.

Worlding America explores the circulation of short narratives in the early Americas through a combination of neglected primary materials and scholarly commentary. Building on recent reconsiderations of American literature in light of transnational and hemispheric approaches, it follows the migration of stories from various backgrounds and demonstrates how forms and themes developed in a new literary market that spanned the Atlantic world.

This collection is an impressive demonstration of the precision and sophistication with which historians are advancing understanding of the slave trade in the South Atlantic. For many readers, these cutting-edge essays will serve as a necessary, if heady, introduction to the field. The title is slightly misleading; the cultural issues inherent in this history are a secondary concern. At heart, the book is an updated reconstruction of the complex demographic, political, and economic forces of the slave trade in the South Atlantic.