HSTY 345 Networks and Empires

Economic History of the Atlantic World

Philippe Buache, Carte physique de l'Ocean ou l'on voit des grandes chaines de montagnes qui traversent les continents d'Europe, d'Afrique et d'Amerique (Paris: G. Delisle et P. Buache, 1757), David Rumsey Map Collection
Philippe Buache, Carte physique de l’Ocean ou l’on voit des grandes chaines de montagnes qui traversent les continents d’Europe, d’Afrique et d’Amerique (Paris: G. Delisle et P. Buache, 1757), David Rumsey Map Collection

Catalog Description

An exploration of the economic, business, and social history of the Atlantic world from 1450-1800. The course examines developments in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, with special attention to the interactions and competition among the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch empires. Topics may include the economic ideologies that underlay European imperial expansion, technologies of transportation and communication, the economics of slavery, trading encounters with Native peoples, and changing ideas about consumption.

Goals and Objectives

By the end of the course, students should be able to, among other things:

  • Articulate the concept and uses of both economic history and Atlantic history as tools of analysis;
  • Compare and contrast the experiences of different European empires and peoples in Africa, North America, and South America during the period under study;
  • Utilize and explain quantitative historical evidence;
  • Explain how historians studied in this course have contributed to historiographic debates about the Atlantic world and economic history.

Course Schedule

Assignments

General Course Policies

Contact

Required Texts

  • Zara Anishanslin, Portrait of a Woman in Silk: Hidden Histories of the British Atlantic World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016). ISBN: 9780300234237
  • Stephanie Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). ISBN: 9780674030688