Northern Europe and the Atlantic World
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 December 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 August 2011
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0129
- LAST REVIEWED: 28 December 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 August 2011
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0129
Introduction
The engagement of northern European states and peoples in the Atlantic world has received little and uneven attention. There are several reasons for this. First, northern European states did not experience the postwar migration from their former colonies that the larger Atlantic empires did. Consequently, the demand of descendants of colonial subjects to reconcile this past with their present was not a pressing political issue in northern Europe. Second, scholarly institutions in northern Europe have not provided institutional support for the development of a coherent tradition of Atlantic history. Instead, research has come in waves, depending on the interest of individual historians. This irregular attention may in turn be connected to political developments in the 19th century. Denmark, for instance, lost much of its European territory during this period. The national self-understanding that resulted from this history of territorial shrinkage was one of a small, peaceful, and homogenous state, inconsistent with the involvement of the Danish state and Danes in the slave trade and slavery. In different ways but with a similar result, Sweden, Finland, and Norway have developed national narratives in which their engagement in the Atlantic world has been insignificant. A third reason for this relatively minor interest in the Atlantic world has to do with northern Europe’s early abandonment of Atlantic possessions, which inevitably influences the way historians of former colonies and settlements approach this element of the past. The historical record is often written in marginal Scandinavian languages that are linguistically obsolete in the areas formerly colonized. More important, the Atlantic colonies of northern Europe were, with the exception of the Danish West Indies, incorporated into larger European empires. This has meant that the history of the small colonies of northern Europe often appears unimportant by comparison to the larger, later imperial histories of other parts of the Atlantic world. In general, the historical and scholarly developments outlined here explain why the historiography of northern Europe and the Atlantic world cannot be characterized as an integrated field in which different interpretations coexist and compete. Rather, historical studies have relied on international trends in colonial history and, more recently, in Atlantic history for interpretative models and frameworks.
Reference Works and Bibliographies
There are few specific reference works and bibliographies on the study of northern Europe and the Atlantic world. The best research method is therefore to track references in the notes of reliable works in the field. For research produced by northern European scholars, there is also the digitalized national historical bibliographies for Denmark, Dansk Historisk Bibliografi; for Norway, Norsk Historisk Bibliografi; for Sweden, Svensk Historisk Bibliografi; and for Finland, Fennica. Moreover, literature concerning the Danish West Indies is presented in Highfield and Tyson 1994 and by the website Virgin Island History, which also introduces archival sources concerning the Danish West Indies and West Africa. The comprehensive bibliography in Justesen 2005 is the best place to begin locating literature about Danish trade and settlement in West Africa. Information on the colony of New Sweden as well as the later Swedish presence in North America can be found in the annual bibliographies of the Swedish-American Historical Quarterly. The website Mémoire St Barth provides a fairly comprehensive bibliography on diverse aspects of the history of St. Barthélemy.
Contains work in Danish and other languages concerning Danish history (in a wide sense) from the Viking age to the present. It covers the periods 1831–1947, 1967–1976, and 1990 onward.
Contains references to publications printed in Finnish and other material relating to Finland. Books and periodicals date back to 1488. Articles can be found in Arto, which indexes Finnish journals from 1990 on. For earlier references, one must consult the published Finnish historical bibliographies (see Suomen historiallinen bibliografia, Suomen historiallinen seura, 1940–1992) that cover the period 1544–1990.
Highfield, Arnold R., and George F. Tyson. Slavery in the Danish West Indies: A Bibliography. St. Croix: Virgin Islands Humanities Council, 1994.
A comprehensive bibliography organized thematically. The bibliography complements Virgin Islands History. In particular the listing of contemporary printed material and references to early unpublished work is valuable.
Justesen, Ole, ed. Danish Sources for the History of Ghana, 1657–1754. 2 vols. Translated by James Manley. Fontes Historiae Africanae 8.2. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2005.
Instead of an actual bibliography, this work contains in Volume 2 a thorough list of literature about the Danish presence on the Gold Coast and encounters with West African societies during the precolonial period. The work also contains illustrative maps. Volume 1 spans the years 1657–1754; Volume 2 the years 1735–1754.
A site in French containing entries on the history of St. Barthélemy. The site provides a bibliography covering the history of the island and introductions to archival holdings (in France and Sweden) about the period of Swedish rule.
Contains work about Norway’s history in Norwegian and other languages published between 1980 and 1997. Earlier work must be sought in the published bibliographies that go back to 1916. For the later periods, material can be located through the national databases for articles and books, both available to subscribers only.
Contains work in Swedish and other languages. The focus is, as the title implies, Swedish history (in a wide sense) from the Viking age to the present. It covers the period 1977 onward. Earlier work must be sought in the published bibliographies (see Svensk historisk bibliografi: Systematisk förteckning över skrifter och uppsatser som röra Sveriges historia, Svenska historika föreningen, 1937–1985) that cover the period 1771–1976.
Swedish-American Historical Quarterly.
Has issued annual bibliographies since 1978. These contain a wide range of entries, some of which fall within the traditional bounds of Atlantic history. It is a good place to survey the state of research on Swedish North American history.
Contains registers of the main record groups concerning the Danish West Indies (and the Gold Coast) in the Danish National Archives and bibliographical entries on major themes in Danish West Indian history. Does not cover literature published after 2002. The site is also published as Erik Gøbel, A Guide to Sources for the History of the Danish West Indies (U.S. Virgin Islands), 1671–1917 (Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2002).
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Article
- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
- Barbados in the Atlantic World
- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Brazil
- Britain and Empire, 1685-1730
- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
- Captivity in Africa
- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
- Cattle in the Atlantic World
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
- Colonial Governance in Spanish America
- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
- Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas
- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
- Creek Indians in the Atlantic World, The
- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
- Dutch Caribbean and Guianas, The
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
- Environment and the Natural World
- Ethnicity
- Europe and Africa
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Northern
- Europe and the Atlantic World, Western
- European, Javanese and African and Indentured Servitude in...
- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
- Feminism
- First Contact and Early Colonization of Brazil
- Fiscality
- Fiscal-Military State
- Food
- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- France and Empire
- France and its Empire in the Indian Ocean
- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
- Free Ports in the Atlantic World
- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
- French Atlantic World
- French Emancipation
- French Revolution, The
- Gardens
- Gender in Iberian America
- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- Germans in the Atlantic World
- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
- Green Atlantic: the Irish in the Atlantic World
- Guianas, The
- Haitian Revolution, The
- Hanoverian Britain
- Havana in the Atlantic World
- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
- Huguenots
- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
- Iberian Empires, 1600-1800
- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
- Impact of the French Revolution on the Caribbean, The
- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
- Indigenous Knowledge
- Insurance
- Internal Slave Migrations in the Americas
- Interracial Marriage in the Atlantic World
- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
- Jamaica in the Atlantic World
- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
- Labor Systems
- Land and Propert in the Atlantic World
- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
- Native Peoples of Brazil
- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
- Networks of Science and Scientists
- New England in the Atlantic World
- New France and Louisiana
- New York City
- News
- Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
- Nineteenth-Century France
- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
- Pacific, The
- Paine, Thomas
- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
- People of African Descent in Early Modern Europe
- Peru
- Pets and Domesticated Animals in the Atlantic World
- Philadelphia
- Philanthropy
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic...
- Polygamy and Bigamy
- Port Cities, British
- Port Cities, British American
- Port Cities, French
- Port Cities, French American
- Port Cities, Iberian
- Ports, African
- Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions
- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
- Quakers
- Quebec and the Atlantic World, 1760–1867
- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
- Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism
- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
- Religious Networks
- Representations of Slavery
- Republicanism
- Rice in the Atlantic World
- Rio de Janeiro
- Rum
- Rumor
- Russia and North America
- Sailors
- Saint Domingue
- Saint-Louis, Senegal
- Salvador da Bahia
- Scandinavian Chartered Companies
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Second-Hand Trade
- Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763
- Seven Years' War, The
- Seville
- Sex and Sexuality in the Atlantic World
- Shakers
- Shakespeare and the Atlantic World
- Ships and Shipping
- Signares
- Silk
- Slave Codes
- Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic
- Slave Owners In The British Atlantic
- Slave Rebellions
- Slave Resistance in the Atlantic World
- Slave Trade and Natural Science, The
- Slave Trade, The Atlantic
- Slavery and Empire
- Slavery and Fear
- Slavery and Gender
- Slavery and the Family
- Slavery, Atlantic
- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
- Slavery in British and American Literature
- Slavery in Danish America
- Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies
- Slavery in New England
- Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of
- Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa
- Slavery in the French Atlantic World
- Slavery, Native American
- Slavery, Public Memory and Heritage of
- Slavery, The Origins of
- Slavery, Urban
- Smuggling
- São Paulo
- Sociability in the British Atlantic
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts...
- Soldiers
- South Atlantic
- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos South Atlantic Creole A...
- South Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685
- Universities
- USA and Empire in the 19th Century
- Venezuela and the Atlantic World
- Violence
- Visual Art and Representation
- War and Trade
- War of 1812
- War of the Spanish Succession
- Warfare
- Warfare in Spanish America
- Warfare in 17th-Century North America
- Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World
- Weavers
- West Indian Economic Decline
- Whitefield, George
- Whiteness in the Atlantic World
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets