E-Book Overview
From Antiquity to modern times, the Atlantic has been the subject of myths and legends. The Atlantic by Paul Butel offers a global history of the ocean encompassing the exploits of adventurers, Vikings, explorers such as Christopher Columbus, emigrants, fishermen, and modern traders. The book also highlights the importance of the growth of ports such as New York and Liverpool and the battles of the Atlantic in the world wars of the twentieth century.The author offers an examination of the legends of the ocean, beginning with the Phoenicians and Carthaginians navigating beyong the Pillars of Hercules, and details the exploitation and power struggles of the Atlantic through the centuries.The book surveys the important events in the Atlantic's rich history and comprehensively analyses the changing fortunes of sea-going nations, including Britain, the United States and Germany.
E-Book Content
The Atlantic
SEAS IN HISTORY Series editor: Geoffrey Scammell
Forthcoming titles THE MEDITERRANEAN THE PACIFIC THE BALTIC AND NORTH SEA THE INDIAN OCEAN
The Atlantic Paul Butel Translated by Iain Hamilton Grant
London and New York
First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1999 Paul Butel English language translation © 1999 Routledge All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Butel, Paul. [Histoire de l’Atlantique. English] The Atlantic/Paul Butel; translated by Iain Hamilton Grant. p. cm. —(Seas in history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-10690-7 1. Atlantic Ocean Region—Commerce—History. 2. International trade— History. I. Title. II. Series. HF4037.85.B8713 1999 382'.019182'1 98–38974 CIP ISBN 0-415-10690-7 (Print Edition) ISBN 0-203-01044-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-20098-5 (Glassbook Format)
TO ROSELYNE
Contents
List of illustrations Preface Acknowledgements
ix xi xiii
Introduction 1
2
1
Atlantic legends and Atlantic reality before the Iberian discoveries The legendary Atlantic 5 The realities of the ancients 9 The Irish and the Vikings in the North Atlantic 19 A new Atlantic: from the fifteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth centuries A new Mediterranean Atlantic 33 Exploring the African Atlantic 39 The western ocean and the NewWorld of the Iberians 45 The Europeans and the North Atlantic 57
3
The Atlantic and the Iberians: sixteenth to seventeenth centuries The hopes and realities of Columbus’s America 62 La Carrera de Indias: trade and ports 64 La Carrera de Indias and the Atlantic economy 73 The Iberian Atlantic is opened to foreigners 77
4
The Atlantic and the growth of the naval powers: the seventeenth century The precocity and scale of Dutch ambitions 93 vii
5
32
62
92
Contents
Dutch participation in the Iberian Atlantic, 1609–1621 96 The Dutch West Indies Company and the great Atlantic projects 98 A New Atlantic age: the Antillean plantations 102 The English presence in the Atlantic 104 The French challenge: from Newfoundland to the Antilles 113 5
6
7
The golden age of the colonial Atlantic: the eighteenth century England and France: the two gr