Three separate definitions of the Atlantic world were offered in this module. Peter Coclanis argues that while the Atlantic World paradigm’s analytic and explanatory strengths are appealing, the use of this paradigm artificially limits the visual field of Atlantic historians, blinding them to non-Atlantic processes impacting the countries which surround the Atlantic Ocean.[1] Coclanis feels that the Atlantic World paradigm gives “too much weight to the Atlantic Rim, separate(s) Northwest Europe too sharply both from other parts of Europe and from Eurasia as a whole, accord(s) too much primacy to America in explaining Europe’s transoceanic trade patterns, and economically speaking, misrepresents through overstatement the place of Europe in the order of things.”[2] He argues that the Atlantic world in 1500 to 1800 CE should not be considered a discrete unit, but rather, one of the various intermittent periods of globalism throughout history[3], and calls for a redefinition of the Atlantic World as a “conjunctoatlantic” history focusing on oceanic trade routes: “the Indian Ocean trade, the Manila Galleon, the Silk Road” as well as other exchange circuits as they work around, through and across the Atlantic basin.
Allison Games argues for reestablishing the Atlantic Ocean, as opposed to the countries surrounding it, to primacy in Atlantic studies. She argues for transatlantic connections to become a fundamental part of the historical analysis of the Atlantic field.[4] Games sees Atlantic history as “a slice of world history . . . a way of looking at global and regional processes within a contained unit”, that is also a “geographic space that has a limited chronology as a logical unit of historical analysis,” and which therefore offers “a useful laboratory within which to examine regional and global transformations.”[5]
While I see some utility to both of these definitions, the definition of Atlantic World which most appeals to me is that of John Elliott. Elliot notes that “the past is too complex, and too endlessly fascinating in its infinite variety, to be reduced to simple formulae,”[6] and instead focuses on “comparing, juxtaposing and interweaving”[7] the stories of the Britain and Spain, (the two nations whom he selects for study in this particular book), in order to draw parallels between their various experiences in the New World. The advantage of this approach is that it makes for readability. Games and Coclanis’s efforts are best described by the words “turgid”, “dry”, and perhaps “scholarly” if one is attempting to be kind. Elliot’s approach on the other hand, makes his book both readable and interesting. History, above all should be story, and Elliot’s comparative approach does best at making a readable tale.
[1] Peter A. Coclanis, “Atlantic World or Atlantic/World,” The William and Mary Quarterly,Third Series, 63, no. 4 (Oct 2006): 726, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4491578 (accessed 27/11/2001).
[2] Coclanis, 727.
[3] Coclanis, 734.
[4] Alison Games, “Atlantic History: Definitions, Challenges, and Opportunities,” The American Historical Review, 111, no 3 (June 2006): 746 http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/ahr.111.3.741. (accessed 28/11/2011).
[5] Games, 748.
[6] John H. Elliott. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), xviii.
[7] Elliot, xvii.
