Theories and
approaches are always abundant when looking at a historical period of time and
the Atlantic World is no exception. This week we were introduced to three
individuals who all have different views and ideas regarding the pivotal time
in world history concerning the Atlantic, roughly 1500 to 1800 ce. Alison Games,
Peter A. Coclanis, and John H. Elliott each approach and define the Atlantic World
in very different ways and each hope that the study of the Atlantic would turn
its head towards their own views. Games and Coclanis bring crucial interpretations
of the prevalent data, but it is Elliott, in my opinion, who ties the facts
together in a unique and important manner that provides the most natural
definition of the Atlantic World.
Games described the
Atlantic World as a case study of World History[1].
She writes that “Atlantic history…is a slice
of world history” and that the study of the Atlantic “can offer a useful
laboratory within which to examine regional and global transformations”[2].
In other words Games sees the Atlantic not just as something that transformed
the world but as an individual entity that has more than just European ties and
in order to understand it needs to be approached using comparative methodology
so as to understand the entire picture.
Unlike Games, Coclanis viewed
the Atlantic World through the trade routes that connected the old world to the
new.[3] He
saw these trade routes as more than just a way to transport goods but as a
means to transport ideas, religious views, scientific knowledge, and sometimes
the unknown transport of harmful entities such as disease.[4]
Coclanis views the Atlantic World as a hub for trade that accelerated the
transport of ideas; the trade routes are the bloodlines that fed the worlds
hunger for knowledge ultimately leading it into the modern era. According to Coclanis “The obsession with the Atlantic world qua unit continues to impede our
understanding of the degree to which this unit drew its lifeblood from and
hemorrhaged into others.”[5] In
other words to focus solely on the Atlantic world and its limited direct connections
in trade does not fully reveal the extent to which the Atlantic touched the
rest of the world.
Although Games and
Coclanis offer persuasive arguments on why and how they categorize the Atlantic
World and agree on the fact that the Atlantic World should be viewed in a
larger perspective, neither offer a more comprehensive perspective on the
impact the Atlantic world had on both the economics and the people who lived
it. However, Elliot offers a perspective that encompasses more than just stale
information and repetitive facts which is why it is the superior of the three. Elliot
views the Atlantic world as a continuously changing entity which ebbed and
flowed with the people.[6] Elliot
states that “Difference of creed and of national origin paled before the
universality of experience that brought emigrants three thousand miles or more
from their European homelands to a new and strange world”[7],
these experiences is what formed the history of the Atlantic and to understand
them means to understand the nature of the Atlantic itself.
History is not just a
sequence of numbers and interconnected stale facts, but it is and was a living
organism whose bloodlines relied on people, people who created the facts and connections
that are so readily studied and explained. The base of which history stands is
people and once you understand the people, you understand the way history was
formed and the reasons certain paths were taken. Put simply, there is a reason
history is known as “his story”. Elliot looks into the way
the emigrants thought and felt when entering into the New World, and it is
through this study that explains the mindless facts and information without
focusing solely on them.
[1] Games,
Alison. "Atlantic History: Definitions, Challenges, and
Opportunities." JSTOR. The University of Chicago Press, 19 Dec.
2010. Web. 27 November 2011. p748. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/ahr.111.3.741>.
[2] Games,
748
[3] Coclanis,
Peter A. “Atlantic World or Atlantic/World?” JSTOR. Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. The William and Mary Quarterly. Third
Sereies. Vol 63. No 4. October 2006. Web. 27 November 2011. P 725- 742. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4491578>.
[4] Coclanis,
740
[5] Coclanis,
727-728
[6] Elliot,
John H. "Introduction. Worlds Overseas" Empires of the Atlantic
World: Britain And Spain in America 1492-1830. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2006. XIII-XX. Print.
[7] Elliot,
XIII
