Welcome to the British Asia – British Atlantic Network

British Asia and the British Atlantic, 1500-1820

John Speed 1627

The British Asia-British Atlantic Network is a collaborative enterprise based at Saint Mary’s University (Halifax), Swansea University (United Kingdom), and the University of Akron (United States). This project originated at a session at the Annual Conference of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, at the University of Glasgow in July 2001. Discussion of the notion of the British ‘pale’ in North America (based on a quotation from Governor Samuel Shute of Massachusetts, 1722) led to comments regarding comparative elements of British imperialism in Asia and the Atlantic world.

Aims and historiographical context

Through a series of workshops and conferences, the network seeks to analyse the processes of early British overseas expansion within a global framework of interpretation. This need arises because the study of the parts of the early modern world that were affected by British imperial outreach, leading in places to colonial settlement and everywhere to exchanges with indigenous populations, has been characterized by narrow subject and geographical specialization. The result has been historiographical fragmentation. Historians of Britain’s Atlantic empire have seldom interacted with historians of the Asian empire. Ironically, historians of both areas – British-influenced Asia and the British Atlantic world – were more comfortable suggesting the implications of their work for world history and globalization than for each other. A fractured historiography means that important scholarly advances in the two different spheres of inquiry have not been reconciled with one another, even though developments in Atlantic history share many characteristics with recent studies of British Asia and the Indian Ocean. In the Atlantic sphere, old models of core and periphery have been modified, much more attention has been paid to economic, social, and cultural exchange, and imperial relationships have been re-defined as processes defined as much by negotiation as by coercion or subordination; and this has served to set Britain and the American colonies very firmly within transoceanic terms of reference. At the same time, new approaches are redefining the history of the Indian Ocean, and attention is now being focused on the relationship between land and sea, the complexities of interactions between different communities, and the networks that facilitated movements of people and ideas across and beyond the boundaries of empires. This re-contextualises the dynamics of British expansion in the region. Yet, in spite of this innovative work, few frameworks of analysis have embraced both spheres of British activity, and, in particular, there remains a need to define properly the position of Africa within the early modern empire.

There are some signs that historians are beginning to acknowledge that horizons do now need to be broadened, and in a review of The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India, and America, c. 1750-1783, David Armitage praises P.J. Marshall for combining ‘what less ambitious historians long contrived to keep asunder: Britain’s “Old” maritime Empire in the Atlantic word and its “New” territorial Empire in India,’ but he notes that much remains to be done. Similarly, Linda Colley in an article in the New York Review of Books states that the ‘biggest flaw in the mighty conception of Atlanticism’ is its inability to account for developments in Asia and ultimately the Pacific. In this context, it seemed, much could be gained through networking among scholars studying different, though simultaneous, manifestations of the interaction of British and indigenous power and influence in the wider world. The workshops are thus very timely because they provide the opportunity for the cross-fertilisation of important ideas, together with the development of an analytical approach that offers Atlantic, Asian, and African perspectives on early modern British imperialism.

In order to develop a fully integrative global approach to the history of Britain’s early modern empire, the programme of workshops and conferences has been designed to draw together researchers who are at the cutting edge in different fields of British Atlantic, South Asian, Indian Ocean, and African history. They thus seek to generate fruitful and novel interactions between historians of different regions who would not normally engage with one another, and the participants will include senior scholars, mid-career historians, and new researchers who are all committed to setting their work in comparative, global perspectives. It is very much hoped that, in addition to analysing the comparisons and contrasts that were evident within processes of British overseas expansion that were increasingly occurring across the world, participants will also explore the interactions and linkages that existed between activities conducted in quite different geographical settings and spheres of interest.

The project has three coordinators: Huw V. Bowen (University of Swansea); Elizabeth Mancke (University of Akron); John G. Reid (Saint Mary’s University). (See “People.”) The project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), The National Endowment for the Humanities in the United States (NEH), and the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom (AHRC).

The first major event was a symposium held at the University of Sussex, 8-10 July 2007. The symposium will produce an edited volume of focused essays on set topics. The Network will also sponsor a series of follow-up workshops for a wider audience, at venues including the National Maritime Museum, the National Waterfront Museum of Wales and the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic as well as further major networking/conference events in Canada and the United States, following up on, and extending, particular themes that had emerged from the initial symposium. (See “News and Events.”)