While scholars of traditional imperial history see the formation of the larger British Atlantic world as a consequence of competing European powers' efforts at nation-building, Atlantic historians see the transatlantic empire shaped more by the motives of a wide variety of subnational groups. Elizabeth Mancke and Carole Shammas have compiled a volume that reflects these different viewpoints concerning the transatlantic experience during Britain's rise to world dominance between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In the book's opening chapters, contributors consider the effect of transatlantic emigration, discussing European and African migration and slave trade; the enslavement of Native American peoples; and the ways individuals adapted their national and religious identities in a world of expanding cultural influences. The second section addresses the roles played by trade, religion, ethnicity, and class in linking the Atlantic borders, with essays examining how mariners circulated political and religious news along with trade goods; how British common law supplanted the diverse legal systems of the early colonies; and how Protestant leaders in the colonies challenged the theological assumptions of their European contemporaries. The chapters in the final section address the increasingly complicated legal relationships between the British sovereign and colonial charterholders; the simultaneous establishment of a British colonial government in East Florida and the Royal Gardens of Kew; the popularity of imperial landscape art in eighteenth-century Britain; and the British roots of Pennsylvania Quakers.

"The Creation of the British Atlantic World" provides insight into the competing forces that forged the Atlantic world as well as the reciprocal relationships between the growing British Empire and the individuals, groups, and subnations within that empire.

Was the British Atlantic shaped more by imperial rivalries or by the actions of subnational groups with a variety of economic, social, and religious agendas? The Creation of the British Atlantic World analyzes the inter-relationship between these competing explanations for the development of the British Atlantic by examining migration patterns on both the macro and micro level. It also scrutinizes the roles played by trade, religion, ethnicity, and class in linking Atlantic borders and the increasingly complicated legal, intellectual and emotional relationship between the British sovereign and colonial charter holders. Its contributors include: Joyce E. Chaplin, John E. Crowley, David Barry Gaspar, April Lee Hatfield, James Horn, Ray A. Kea, Elizabeth Mancke, Philip D. Morgan, William M. Offutt, Robert Olwell, Carole Shammas, Wolfgang Splitter, Mark L. Thompson, Karin Wulf, and, Avihu Zakai.

Today the bulk of tangible wealth around the globe resides in buildings and physical infrastructure rather than moveable goods. This situation was not always the case. "Investing in the Early Modern Built Environment" represents the first attempt to delve into the period s enhanced architectural investment its successes, its failures, and the conflicts it provoked. Not just cultural but clear economic and environmental reasons existed for a rejection of the new architectural agenda. Whatever its efficacy or flaws, it ultimately served as a model worldwide for cityscapes and housing well into the twentieth century. Contributors include Jordan Sand, Robin Pearson, John Broad, Kiyoko Yamaguchi, Steven W. Hackel, Susan E. Hough, Johnathan Farris, Matthew Mulcahy, Charles Walker, Emma Hart, Chad Anderson, Ross H. Cordy, Grace Karskens, and Carole Shammas.