The Age of Atlantic Revolutions
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 June 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0352
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 June 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0352
Introduction
Should we call the broad dynamic that gripped the Atlantic from 1750 to 1850 the “Age of Revolution” or the “Age of Revolutions?” The question of the “s” goes to the heart of the ways that historians have struggled to place national stories into a broader whole and whether they have stressed national distinctiveness or shared processes and legacies. Lately, the answer seems to be both. The so-called age occurred within a system, it was locally inflected, and one of its defining features centered on how many revolutionary movements (as well as counterrevolutionary) were tied together by peoples, events, and ideas. It’s hardly a surprise, therefore, that the literature on what we call the “Age of Atlantic Revolution (or Revolutions)” is as broad and as deep as the ocean itself. It could include the histories of the many nations that emerged from the period. Scholars have written about and argued over all of the places touched by the age because the age created so many nations. The debates over the meanings of nationhood and national origins are the most heated of any field. The stakes, in other words, have been and remain high, and shelves groan with all the national histories written about the period. A survey of the literature could incorporate imperial histories of the transatlantic governing structures that fractured through reform. An article like this could also include all of the work done on global warfare that was unleashed by revolution. This article cannot chart all of it. It will try to give the reader a sense of how the idea of Atlantic revolution(s) has developed and how it has played out in the many littoral regions touched by revolution in the late 18th and early 19th nineteenth centuries. Because the literature is so vast, this essay will not cover primary sources. Where would one begin or end? It will instead focus on work recently done on the subject, with a particular emphasis on Atlantic connections. It does so for a good reason. Over this past generation, we have witnessed a resurgence of the Atlantic framework. With the rise of the “new” Atlantic history, more and more historians have begun re-investigating older national and regional stories in light of the larger context of the Atlantic. They have been teasing out how and why different regions were bound together, even those living on the peripheries. We are now living in a new golden age of the Atlantic. It should also be noted that much of the best work has been done in English or has been translated into it. For that reason, the essay will stress the Anglophone literature. Finally, because it cannot survey all the work done, it aims to give the reader a sense of representative works that have defined the ways we are now placing discrete regions into the larger story.
General Studies
There has been a literature on the age as long as there have been Atlantic Revolutions. But the modern field as we know it was really born through the work of two historians: R. R. Palmer and Jacques Godechot (Palmer 1959–1964 and Godechot 1970). Democracy was born through the age, they argued, and by making this move Palmer in particular was suggesting that the old Marxist notion of a grand revolutionary tradition which excluded America but tied France into the histories of the Soviet Union and China was wrong-headed and ahistorical. America and France, both believed, were bound together. Since he published his two-volume work, Palmer has come under criticism for not examining the role of women during the age, focusing too intently on the North Atlantic, and ignoring Haiti. These issues have been since addressed by historians. Other foundational works view the period as a historical turning point, such as Hobsbawm 1962. These sorts of studies now tend to employ Atlantic lenses. Two great examples are Bayly 2003 and Osterhammel 2014. Since the time of Palmer, Godechot, and Hobsbawm, we have seen an effervescence of Atlantic studies spurred by the rise of the Atlantic paradigm. Most have focused on connections and entanglements, such as Polasky 2015, and many take a consciously comparative approach Elliott 2006; Klooster 2009; Langley 1996). What had been discrete Atlantic worlds are now seen as intersecting and sometimes colliding. Blaufarb 2007 offers a model essay in this regard. System and circulation for all of these authors would be the two operative words. Representative works range from studies that discuss changes in the Atlantic system, such as Greene and Morgan 2009 and Canny and Morgan 2011, to those that cover how Atlantic-wide changes led to imperial reform and then revolutionary ferment. Some good examples of historians that focus on the imperial dimensions of the age are illustrated in the works Fradera 2019 and Adelman 2008. War still draws scholars who study the age. See, for instance, Forrest, et al. 2016. Comparative studies of ideas have long fascinated those interested in the age (see Venturi 1991), and—as evidenced by Kloppenberg 2016 and Baker and Edelstein 2015—still do, but ideas are often construed in new ways, such as in Knott 2016. Comparative studies of slaves, slavery, and abolition have long been seen as central to the age, as we see with Blackburn 1988; however, they have exploded in number with the rise of Atlantic history. Good examples include Drescher 2009 and Oldfield 2013. Fullagar and McDonnell 2018 explores indigenous peoples during the age through a comparative lens. This volume is a great jumping off point to a topic sure to become more central to the study of the age in years to come. Similarly, we have seen a growth is the number of scholars working on creoles and their relationship to revolution, as seen in Simon 2017 and Landers 2010. Lately, though most firmly root their work in the Atlantic paradigm, we have seen a few studies place the age in a global context, such as Armitage and Subrahmanyam 2010. Finally, more and more scholars are studying the role and experience of women—and gender—during the broad age. They are doing so in more nuanced ways than in the past, and almost all are rooting national studies in an intellectual milieu that was both Atlantic and broadly revolutionary. For that reason, they are listed here. For America, Linda Kerber was doing work well ahead of her time (Kerber 1980). Oberg 2019 demonstrates how the field in early America has caught up. A French study of note that also makes these moves is Jarvis 2019. Smith 2006 and O’Brien 2009 do as much for Latin America and Britain respectively. Sarah Knott has produced perhaps a roadmap to the future in terms of the sophistication of her arguments and her broad scope in Knott 2014. Moore, et al. 2012, in bringing together a group of texts, amply demonstrates how the field has changed in the past generation. We have come a long way since Palmer.
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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
- 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
- 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
- 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 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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 Atlantic Creole A...
- 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
- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
- Textiles in the Atlantic World
- Texts, Printing, and the Book
- The American West
- 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
- 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