Sociability in the British Atlantic
- LAST REVIEWED: 13 July 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 29 July 2020
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0339
- LAST REVIEWED: 13 July 2023
- LAST MODIFIED: 29 July 2020
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0339
Introduction
Sociability is both a value and a social practice, yet it is not universal. The ability to live in society as well as the degree of sociability of an individual seem to depend on his/her culture and on the character of his nation. The exceptional development of forms, practices, and institutions of sociability in early modern Europe was mainly linked to urban expansion, to the growth of commercial society, and to the expansion of print culture and communication. Recent scholarship has focused increasingly on the emergence of different models of sociability in 18th-century Europe. The French model of sociability was built due to the idealization of the Parisian salon and the ideal of politeness and to the privileged role it granted to women. A distinct British model of sociability took shape from the Restoration period and developed throughout the 18th century, defining itself thanks to exchanges and tensions with France and expressing itself through paradoxes that both reflected and constructed the national character. The relatively new field of British Atlantic studies has opened new paths for the exploration of sociability, a central phenomenon that informs the social, cultural, and political histories of colonial societies and, especially, refines our understanding of the social interactions, behaviors, and structures of the British Atlantic world and of their important role in shaping new identities. The “transplantation” of forms, practices, and institutions of sociability from Britain to its colonial empire with the creation of transatlantic networks of sociability constitutes a fertile research area, benefiting from insights drawn from various disciplinary fields. This article provides a selection of bibliographic references thematically arranged into sections, all topics constituting central aspects of the study of sociability in the British Atlantic.
General Overviews
No general overview on the topic of sociability in the British Atlantic is available. Recent scholarship on British sociability has produced important work on various aspects of this social and cultural phenomenon. The essays in Capdeville and Kerhervé 2019 and in the multi-volume series Cossic-Péricarpin 2012– follow interdisciplinary and comparative approaches. They provide stimulating analyses and have opened new research paths toward more transnational and global perspectives. The imperial dimension of British culture and identities in global contexts are efficiently addressed in Wilson 2004. The study of sociability in combination with other concepts has proved a particularly useful strategy for exploring diverse practices and institutions of sociability not only in Europe but also around the Atlantic and beyond. Duthille, et al. 2013 demonstrates that conviviality served to reinforce sociability and helped cement social relationships in 18th-century Europe and America. Breuninger and Burrow 2012 offers a geographically wider perspective and explores the notions of sociability and cosmopolitanism as ways in which people sought to improve society to the confines of the Empire. Research on sociability in the British Atlantic can be approached through the study of colonization and transatlantic circulations. First, migration to and settlement in the British colonies of the Atlantic Basin constitute the points of entry into the history of Atlantic sociability (Armitage and Braddick 2009 and Boorstin 2000). Second, the colonial experience includes the transplantation of sociable practices and institutions from Britain to its colonies, thus allowing us to use the notion of cultural transfer as a key methodological framework for interpreting the variations in the development of Atlantic sociability. In that respect, Hall 1982 places specific social groups and institutions of sociability at the core of the development of American nationality and culture, while defending the primacy of New England. On the contrary, Greene 1988 reinterprets the social evolution of colonial America and convincingly argues for the central economic, social, and cultural role of the Chesapeake. Shields 1997 is the only study that addresses aspects of British Atlantic sociability but it mainly focuses on the intellectual forms and practices of sociability and belles lettres as found in Philadelphia, Charleston, and Boston.
Armitage, David, and Michael J. Braddick, eds. The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800. 2d ed. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Rich collection of thematic essays on the history of the British Atlantic by leading scholars focused on the notions of migration, circulation, and networks as well as civility, gender, and class. Also raises important historiographical questions such as Armitage’s introduction, which proposes a threefold typology of Atlantic history: circum-, trans-, and cis- Atlantic history.
Boorstin, Daniel J. The Americans. Vol. 1, The Colonial Experience. London: Phoenix, 2000.
Originally published in 1958. A reinterpretation of American history stressing the role of the colonial experience in shaping American civilization and culture, rather than being a mere European export. Confronts the vision with the reality of settlement, analyzes the transplantation of institutions and practices and the transformative role of the American experience. Interesting developments on the gentleman ideal and on the cultural role of Philadelphia.
Breuninger, Scott, and David Burrow, eds. Sociability and Cosmopolitanism: Social Bonds on the Fringes of the Enlightenment. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012.
This collection of essays explores how notions of sociability and cosmopolitanism were articulated in a variety of national contexts during the long 18th century. Divided into three geographic sections: “European Peripheries,” “Eurasian Borders,” and “The Atlantic World,” this study combines sociability and cosmopolitanism to illustrate the vitality of Enlightenment thought.
Capdeville, Valérie, and Alain Kerhervé, eds. British Sociability in the Long Eighteenth Century: Challenging the Anglo-French Connection. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2019.
This innovative collection explores how a distinctively British model of sociability developed from 1660 to 1830 through a complex process of appropriation, emulation, and resistance to what was happening in France and other parts of Europe. The contributors use a wide range of sources and a variety of methodological approaches to explore philosophical, political, and social aspects of the emergence of British sociability.
Cossic-Péricarpin, Annick, ed. La sociabilité en France et en Grande-Bretagne au siècle des Lumières: L’émergence d’un nouveau modèle de société. Transversales. Paris: Éditions le Manuscrit, 2012–.
Important series devoted to the study of sociability in the long 18th century by an interdisciplinary network of French and international scholars. Thematic volumes with essays in French or in English that use comparative perspectives and thematic approaches, thus bringing new insights into the history of sociability in France and in Britain.
Duthille, Rémy, Jean Mondot, and Cécile Révauger, eds. “Sociabilité et convivialité en Europe et en Amérique du Nord, XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles.” Lumières 21 (1er semestre, 2013).
Rich collection of sixteen essays by European scholars reflecting on the articulation between the notions of sociability and conviviality. Presents a variety of institutions and forms of sociability in Europe and America: from London gentlemen’s clubs to Viennese gardens, from French salons to some North American ritual gatherings, and from epistolary sociability to discursive forms of sociable exchange.
Hall, Peter Dobkin. The Organization of American Culture, 1700–1900: Private Institutions, Elites, and the Origins of American Nationality. New York: New York University Press, 1982.
A work on the role of social institutions and groups in shaping American cultural and social identity. Argues that New England played a leading role in setting economic, cultural, and social patterns of colonial development.
Greene, Jack P. Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
Seminal work on pre-revolutionary British America, which offers a transatlantic framework for studying the social and cultural development of the colonies. Raises the issue of the influence of the mother country on the shaping of American culture and highlights the transplantation and hybridization process at stake. Questions older accounts of American history, which emphasize the primacy of New England.
Shields, David S. Civil Tongues & Polite Letters in British America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Influential work on the culture of polite sociability in British America, showing how metropolitan English practices were imitated and adapted across the Atlantic. Studies a variety of social practices and institutions in relation to literature, polite conversation, and print culture (tea tables and assemblies, coffee houses or taverns, gentlemen’s clubs, booksellers’ shops, etc.).
Wilson, Kathleen, ed. A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660–1840. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Groundbreaking collection of sixteen essays in the emerging field of “new imperial history” that discusses the mutual impact of empire on culture, politics, and society in Britain. The contributors employ an interdisciplinary perspective, and these stimulating chapters on ethnicity, gender, the arts, or politics highlight the influence colonized societies and people exercised in shaping European societies and cultural identities in proposing a fluid “Atlantic interculture.”
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
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
- Asia and the Americas and the Iberian Empires
- 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
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Bourbon Reforms in the Spanish Atlantic, The
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Brazilian Independence
- 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 American Independence
- 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
- Cortes of Cádiz
- Cosmopolitanism
- 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 Amazonia
- 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 Enslavement of Indigenous People in the Americas
- 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
- Founding Myths of the Americas
- 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
- German Influences in America
- 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
- Indigo in the Atlantic World
- 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
- Maritime Literature
- Markets in the Atlantic World
- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Maryland
- 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
- Nobility and Gentry in the Early Modern Atlantic World
- 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
- Phillis Wheatley
- Piracy
- Plantations in the Atlantic World
- Plants
- Poetry in the British Atlantic
- 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
- Potosi
- 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 and Technology (in Literature of the Atlantic Worl...
- Science, History of
- Scotland and the Atlantic World
- Sea Creatures in 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 Carolina
- Sovereignty and the Law
- Spain, Early Modern
- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
- Spanish American Port Cities
- Spanish Atlantic World
- Spanish Colonization to 1650
- Subjecthood in the Atlantic World
- Sugar in the Atlantic World
- Swedish Atlantic World, The
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- The Danish Atlantic World
- The French Lesser Antilles
- The Fur Trade
- The Spanish Caribbean
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
- Travel Writing (in the Atlantic World)
- 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
- William Blackstone
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest (1611)
- William Wilberforce
- Wine
- Witchcraft in the Atlantic World
- Women and the Law
- Women Prophets