The multivolume histories prepared by Cambridge University Press (Fage and Oliver 1975–1986) and UNESCO 1981–1993 provide excellent overviews of every part and period of African history and include full bibliographies. Austen 1987 and Hopkins 1973 are outstanding comparative overviews of the importance of internal, Atlantic, and Islamic trades for the continent’s development. Thornton 1998 is a survey of early transatlantic relations that has been influential in reframing the early history of transatlantic connections to pay more attention to African agency, while Northrup 2014 explores the first four centuries of African interactions with Europeans with a similar emphasis on African perspectives and actions. Thornton 1999 also provides a pioneering introduction to the Atlantic’s importance in African military history. Austen, Ralph A. African Economic History: Internal Development and External Dependency. London: James Currey, 1987. This masterful overview of Africans’ adaptation to their continent’s environments and the development of regional marketing networks goes on to describe the growing external involvements via the Sahara, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic and the resulting consequences. Fage, J. D., and Roland Oliver, eds. The Cambridge History of Africa. 8 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1975–1986. These volumes are divided chronologically, and their chapters are subdivided geographically and thematically. Written by the leading experts, this is meant to be a definitive guide to the history of the continent from antiquity to the early independence period. It is still extremely useful. Hopkins, Anthony G. An Economic History of West Africa. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973. This groundbreaking examination of West Africans’ international and internal economic relations first with the Islamic states to the north and then with Europeans in the Atlantic stresses that Africans were rational decision makers. Northrup, David. Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1450–1850. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. This readable, innovative survey of sub-Saharan African cultural and economic relations with Europeans before the colonial era is heavily based on African perspectives. Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511800276 This groundbreaking study argues that Africans in and out of slavery were active participants in creating the Atlantic world. Coverage is confined to the period before 1680 except for one chapter on Africans in the 18th-century Atlantic. Thornton, John K. Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500–1800. London: UCL, 1999. This well-written scholarly survey of African warfare, military technology, and weaponry argues that African states had great military strengths and that older, exaggerated assertions of the powerful impact of the Atlantic on African societies in this period needs to be reassessed. UNESCO. General History of Africa. 8 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981–1993. Written by scholars from Africa and other continents, these volumes are chronologically arranged and contain chapters on many subjects. The quality of this UNESCO history is more uneven than Fage and Oliver 1975–1986 and is more focused on internal developments. In recent years, the 19th century has become increasingly important to the study of the Atlantic world. Whereas only a few years ago most Atlantic history scholars were early modernists and colonialists who focused primarily on Britain and its American colonies and ended their studies in c. 1800, now many historians incorporate much, if not all of the 19th century, into their studies, and they study all geographic areas of the Atlantic world. This has led to three important historiographical trends: First, more than ever historians are now studying developments from the late 18th and 19th centuries in ways that incorporate their full Atlantic context. This includes subjects such as the Age of Revolution, the Age of Emancipation, the Black Atlantic, and capitalism and slavery. In doing so they recognize connections and influences among people from Europe, Africa, and the Americas throughout the region. Second, historians have become interested in explaining how and when to “end” the history of the Atlantic world. They have pushed the end date deep into the 19th century, and there is now a consensus that this era must be studied in order to understand the end or transformation of the early modern Atlantic world that has been the focus of so much interest in the past generation. Last, many historians are studying the 19th century as a period of transition, in which previous relationships among Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans can be better understood in global terms. Historians writing in a number of languages addressing themes such as slavery, abolition, and migration have produced a lively scholarly literature that, among other things, better incorporates the South Atlantic into discussions of the Atlantic world.
What was the significance of the Atlantic world?
The Atlantic World describes the interconnected web of social and financial economies that bound together the peoples and nations of Europe, West Africa, and North and South America from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth century.
Why did historians study the Atlantic world?
Because of the global scale of their subject matter, historians of U.S. empire look at Atlantic crossings as part of a larger complex of demographic, political, economic, and cultural flows that spanned the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
What is Atlantic history and why is it an important frame of reference?
Atlantic history is a kind of historical analysis that historians have used since the late 1980s to organize profound transformations in the societies in the four continents bordering the Atlantic Ocean in the early modern era.
Why Atlantic Ocean was important in transatlantic trade?
In the colonial era, the Atlantic Ocean served as a highway between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, tying together a network of people, raw materials, finished goods, merchants, and sailors that brought wealth to colonial empires.
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