Britain: Atlantic, or Imperial power?

Article by Sarah Bramham. Edited and Researched by Mike Edwardson.

Atlantic historians study the early modern Atlantic world. Atlantic history is based on the idea that after Europeans made contact with the ‘New World’ in the 16thcentury, the continents that bordered the Atlantic Ocean shared a common sphere of economic and cultural exchange that can be studied in its entirety. It may be suggested that Atlantic history suits study of Britain because Britain tends to be Euro-sceptic. Britain often likes to view itself as an Atlantic power, as opposed to a European power. Trevor Burnard, in his essay on the British Atlantic published in Atlantic History: a critical appraisal suggests that the re-emergence of Imperial history since the 1980s had made looking at the British Atlantic less desirable. He proposes that study of the British Atlantic may offer us interesting insights – but what we gain from this perspective is equal to what we lose through abandoning other perspectives, such as the Imperial perspective.  In this brief article, I will attempt to examine the differences between these two perspectives and ponder which of them actually best suits the British model. 

Arguably, where Atlantic history fails is in its failure to explain Britain’s accelerated industrialisation. Britain’s industrialisation was not matched by any other European power, despite a number of other European powers being involved in the transatlantic slave trade just like Britain was. David Richardson points out this failure in his review of Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy: 1660-1800. Arguably Atlantic history fails here because local issues become more dominant than transatlantic issues. A good example of a local issue which Atlantic history would perhaps over look is the English Civil War of the seventeenth century. The Civil War meant that during that time Colonies lost contact with England, and therefore they had to progress on their own and were run by private corporations. 

So, if the Atlantic model doesn’t fit study of Britain and her Empire, then this demands that an alternative model be provided. Arguably, an imperial perspective best suits study of Britain – since theories of Imperialism usually focus on the British Empire. Even the term “imperialism” itself was introduced as we currently understand it by opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli’s colonial policies in the late 1870s. Thus, if “imperialism” itself is a British concept then consequently one can conclude that an Imperial model is most effective for studying British ventures in the Atlantic. One could even attempt to deconstruct the concept of “imperialism” and establish how the term has developed in Britain since the 1870s. Did Disraeli’s opponents really understand the term to mean what we believe it means today? If not, should this change have we view or study British imperialism or British activity in the Atlantic? 

New Imperial History, which came about in the 1990s, is distinguished by its view that the British Empire was a cultural venture. It wasn’t just about political and economic interactions. The emphasis on the flow of culture and ideas makes it similar to Atlantic history, which is also interested in how culture and ideas transcended national boundaries to travel across the Atlantic. It is similarities such as this which make historians argue that Atlantic history is not as innovative as it claims to be, it is in fact merely Imperial history under a different guise. This means its use for studying Britain is limited, because, it cannot offer any new insights that Imperial history hasn’t already offered. 

However, I would not want to completely dismiss a historical model that many historians have dedicated much of their careers to. This hardly seems justifiable! Therefore, I should point out that I do believe (in spite of evidence to the contrary) that Atlantic history has some merits. Atlantic history could most certainly offer use useful insights when comparing and contrasting different countries activities in the same area of the Atlantic. Britain and France’s activities in the ‘New World’, for example, differed quite dramatically. Britain wished to colonise the territory, whereas France on the other hand wished to develop strong trade links but was much less interested in moving settlers over to the ‘New World’. My use of air quotes when I reference the ‘New World’ is to point out that it is a questionable term. It follows a paradigm that America was an unsettled land before the arrival of the Europeans. This implies that it was a blank canvas, just waiting for European invaders. In reality, the ‘New World’ was far from a blank canvas. The Natives of the territory had their own culture and customs and had long since settled the land in their own way. Atlantic history could help readdress such problematic discourse as this, as it does not assume the teleological view (as Imperial history arguably does) that Europeans were inevitably going to colonise America and subordinate the natives. Instead it examines the cultural exchange between the ‘New world’ and ‘old world’. When done well, it does not assume the authority of one of these ‘worlds’ over the other. 

In summary, Atlantic history is not the best model when studying Britain specifically. Although perhaps outdated, Imperial history is arguably the most appropriate model for British history as imperialism itself is a British concept and as I have noted, there are still a number of questions one can ask about this term and its place in British history. Atlantic history is best applied when one wants to consider comparisons, or when one wishes to deconstruct misleading Imperial discourse. 

• Atlantic history developed as a school of thought in the second half of the twentieth century • Centre’s on the Atlantic as an interconnected historical community. 

• It found prominent proponents in colonial historians like Bernard Bailyn and Jack. P. Greene • It has come under fire in recent years as simply ‘imperial history under another guise’ 

• It has also been accused of ignoring the unique local qualities of its constituent parts 

• But, argues Paul Cohen, it can still be one useful lens among many in the historian’s toolbox.

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