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During our first week in class we were handed a map of the world and asked to give our definition of what the Atlantic world is. While most of us had different interpretations, each of us had distinct physical and temporal boundaries on where the Atlantic realm begins and ends. Even though each one of us were correct in or interpretations, we were only scratching the surface on what the Atlantic world really is. While most people believe that the history of the Atlantic started with Columbus’ voyage to the Americas, but is that when Atlantic history really began? We can say that Atlantic history started earlier, but we do not have any verifiable proof. Since Columbus documented his travels and they are readily accessible, we as historians have definitive starting point. Our final three readings for the class try to encapsulate what we have been studying for the past semester. Even though each of these three historians, David Armitage, Bernard Bailyn, and Laurent Dubois have come up with with different views on what the Atlantic world is, there is an over-arching consensus that the Atlantic world is a community tired together by the Atlantic Ocean. As a community, according to Armitage, the Atlantic world brought together states, nations, and regions (Arimtage 20). Even though each of the entities has histories that they could call their own, their actions and the actions of others affected their histories in either a positive or negative way. One of these actions as we all know was slavery which was considered a blight on American as well as Atlantic history. Even though we would like to sweep the ghost of slavery away, we can’t. In his online article, Laurent Dubois contends that the slave ship is the center of Atlantic history (Dubois, Online). While I agree with my colleague Tram Hua, that slavery was one of the defining parts of Atlantic history, I disagree with Dubois that it was the nucleus of the Atlantic realm. Since I stated that we only scratched the surface of this expansive study we call Atlantic history, I found something interesting in our readings. According to Bernard Bailyn, Atlantic history was created by professional historians as a response to the threat from Communism (Bailyn 12). Hence the Western powers needed to claim the Atlantic space in order to promote freedom and the capitalist and Christian ideals that were sacred to the Western world. To sum up, Atlantic history is encompasses and connects the Americas, Europe, and Africa together in a symbiotic relationship. This relationship which began over five hundred years ago has solidified into community of Atlantic states whose well being and stability are dependent on the others in the community.
Armitage, David. Three Concepts in Atlantic History. New York: Macmillan. 2002.
Bailyn, Bernard. Atlantic History: Concepts and Contours. London: Harvard University Press. 2005.
Dubois, Laurent “Atlantic Freedoms” Aeon. (November 2016). Accessed December 1, 2016. https://aeon.co/essays/why-haiti-should-be-at-the-centre-of-the-age-of-revolution