Since the 1950s historians of the colonial era in North, South and Central America have extended the frontiers of basic general knowledge enormously; this rich historiographical tradition has generated robust methodological discussions about how to study the European encounter in the light of the experience of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. By bringing together major research reviews by a series of leading scholars, this volume makes it possible to compare directly approaches relating to colonial North America, Brazil, the Spanish borderlands, and the Caribbean.
This study sets out to overcome the curious prejudice that the ocean is a barrier rather than a means of communication, demonstrating this with regard to the Engish Atlantic empire. It is not realized how closely Britain and the American colonies were connected throughout the colonial period.
Crossroads and Cultures: A History of the World’s Peoples incorporates the best current cultural history into a fresh and original narrative that connects global patterns of development with life on the ground. As the title, “Crossroads,” suggests, this new synthesis highlights the places and times where people exchanged goods and commodities, shared innovations and ideas, waged war and spread disease, and in doing so joined their lives to the broad sweep of global history. Students benefit from a strong pedagogical design, abundant maps and images, and special features that heighten the narrative’s attention to the lives and voices of the world’s peoples. Test drive a chapter today. Find out how.
This collection's central thesis is straightforward: long-distance communication plays a key role in the cohesion and stability of early states and in turn, these states invest heavily in long-term communication strategies and networks. As reliable and fast long-distance communication facilitates the successful delegation of power from the centre to the local administrations, the creation and maintenance of the necessary infrastructure to support this is a key strategy of the central state.
Crossroads and Cultures: A History of the World’s Peoples incorporates the best current cultural history into a fresh and original narrative that connects global patterns of development with life on the ground. As the title, “Crossroads,” suggests, this new synthesis highlights the places and times where people exchanged goods and commodities, shared innovations and ideas, waged war and spread disease, and in doing so joined their lives to the broad sweep of global history. Students benefit from a strong pedagogical design, abundant maps and images, and special features that heighten the narrative’s attention to the lives and voices of the world’s peoples. Test drive a chapter today. Find out how.
From the time of Cook, the British and their Canadian successors were drawn to the Northwest coast of North America by possibilities of trade in sea otter and the wish to find a 'northwest passage'. The studies collected here trace how, under the influences of the Royal Navy and British statecraft, the British came to dominate the area, with expeditions sent from London, Bombay and Macau, and the Canadian quest from overland. The North West Company came to control the trade of the Columbia River, despite American opposition, and British sloop diplomacy helped overcome Russian and Spanish resistance to British aspirations. Elsewhere in the Americas, the British promoted trans-Pacific trade with China, harvested British Columbia forests, conveyed specie from western Mexico, and established the South America naval station. The flag followed trade and vice versa; empire was both formal (at Vancouver Island) and informal (as in California or Mexico). This book features individuals such as James Cook, William Bolts, Peter Pond, and Sir Alexander Mackenzie. It is also an account of the pressure that corporations placed on the British state in shaping the emerging world of trade and colonization in that distant ocean and its shores, and of the importance of sea-power in the creation of modern Canada.
The second edition of The Oxford Companion to Archaeology is a thoroughly up-to-date resource with new entries exploring the many advances in the field since the first edition published in 1996. In 700 entries, the second edition provides thorough coverage to historical archaeology, the development of archaeology as a field of study, and the way the discipline works to explain the past. In addition to these theoretical entries, other entries describe the major excavations, discoveries, and innovations, from the discovery of the cave paintings at Lascaux to the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics and the use of luminescence dating. Recent developments in methods and analytical techniques which have revolutionized the ways excavations are performed are also covered; as well as new areas within archeology, such as cultural tourism; and major new sites which have expanded our understanding of prehistory and human developments through time. In addition to significant expansion, first-edition entries have been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the progress that has been made in the last decade and a half.
The first multivolume encyclopedia to document the history of one of the most influential religious movements of the Middle Ages—the Crusades. The Crusades: An Encyclopedia surveys all aspects of the crusading movement from its origins in the 11th century to its decline in the 16th century. Unlike other works, which focus on the eastern Mediterranean region, this expansive four-volume encyclopedia also includes the struggle of Christendom against its enemies in Iberia, Eastern Europe, and the Baltic region, and also covers the military orders, crusades against fellow Christians, heretics, and more. This work includes comprehensive entries on personalities such as Godfrey of Bouillon, who refused the title "King of Jerusalem," and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who tore up his own clothing to make symbols of the cross for crusaders, as well as key events, countries, places, and themes that shed light on everything from the propaganda that inspired crusading warriors to the ways in which they fought. Special coverage of topics such as taxation, pilgrimage, warfare, chivalry, and religious orders give readers an appreciation of the multifaceted nature of these "holy wars."
Ancient Rome masterfully synthesizes the vast period from the second millennium BCE to the sixth century CE, carrying readers through the succession of fateful steps and agonizing crises that marked Roman evolution from an early village settlement to the capital of an extraordinary realm extending from northern Britain to the deserts of Arabia. A host of world-famous figures come to life in these pages, including Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Augustus, Livia, Cicero, Nero, Hadrian, Diocletian, Constantine, Justinian, and Theodora. Filled with chilling narratives of violence, lust, and political expediency, this book not only describes empire-shaping political and military events but also treats social and cultural developments as integral to Roman history. William E. Dunstan highlights such key topics as the physical environment, women, law, the roles of slaves and freedmen, the plight of unprivileged free people, the composition and power of the ruling class, education, popular entertainment, food and clothing, marriage and divorce, sex, death and burial, finance and trade, scientific and medical achievements, religious institutions and practices, and artistic and literary masterpieces. All readers interested in the classical world will find this a fascinating and compelling history.
