History 234 - The Atlantic World

Early Americans inhabited an interconnected world through which people, beliefs, and objects circulated. This course explores the 'Atlantic World' as both a place and a concept: an ocean surrounded by diverse communities and empires, and an imagined space of shared or competing affiliations. Moving from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, it examines ecological, cultural, political, economic, intellectual, and religious exchanges among Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans. It will introduce both conceptual dimensions of this Atlantic paradigm and case studies that investigate its human subtleties, with the goal of examining early American history through a transnational lens.