The Global Atlantic: 1400–1900 by Christoph Strobel (review)

Following the lead of scholars such as Peter Coclanis and Thomas Bender, Christoph Strobel transforms the Atlantic World into the Global Atlantic. Strobel asserts that “the Atlantic World did not exist in a vacuum,” which is somewhat a self-evident statement, but it is no easy to task elaborate on this, let alone write a book about it. (5). For the most part, Strobel succeeds in demonstrating that the emergence and development of the Atlantic trade network cannot be understood without considering its connections to the Pacific and Indian Oceans as well as the rest of Afro-Eurasia — a more neutral term the author uses to replace “the Old World.” Thanks to its less intimidating size and form, the book would be an ideal choice for undergraduate students who need a short, introductory work either for Atlantic World or global history courses.

Part I, consisting of only one chapter, is perhaps the most effective section of the book. Unlike the traditional narrative of Atlantic World history that gives primacy to the Iberian states of Portugal and Castile, Strobel drastically reduces their presence and balances them with the brief histories of diverse peoples such as the Vikings, the Rus, the Byzantines, and the Slavs (from whom the English word “slave” derived, as Strobel emphasizes), as well as the sub-Saharan empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhay. Portugal is only mentioned briefly in this chapter to show that the Portuguese had attempted to establish their foothold in North Africa in order to tap into the lucrative sub-Saharan trade route already established by the West African empires and the Muslim world. Strobel does an admirable job of recasting the narrative of the origins of the Atlantic World from multiple sites instead of the Iberian Peninsula or the Western Europe.

From Part II on, however, the familiar stories of the European exploration across the Atlantic Ocean and the coast of West Africa return, followed by the descriptions of European colonization efforts in the Americas and Asia. Those who are familiar with the standard narrative of Atlantic World history will not note anything particularly insightful here but newcomers will find a wealth of information, as Strobel provides an excellent overview of how trade of numerous commodities, the slave trade, and the biological exchanges between the Europeans and Africans, Native Americans, or Asians transformed their respective economy and material culture. Even if it is not conceptually groundbreaking, both scholars and students of Atlantic World history might appreciate Strobel’s engagement with the Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch in the Indian Ocean and “the Spanish Sea” (90).

Although the book is mostly well-written and efficiently organized, it suffers from some problems toward the end. One of the biggest challenges for the author must have been presenting a coherent narrative that retains the conventional frame of Atlantic World history while making judicious selections from world history that supports the book’s main thesis. Up to chapter four, Strobel admirably manages to do this but toward the final chapter his narrative starts to lose its focus and meanders on when he describes the interactions between the European powers (the Portuguese and the Dutch, in particular) and the Asian empires — mainly, China. In other words, the author appears to struggle with finding a proper end point of the Global Atlantic at the turn of the twentieth century.

Strobel also writes that “culture contact” and the “encounter” of peoples are “central to this book” but not many of these exchanges appear fully fleshed out (6). For instance, the author frequently refers to intermarriages between European, Muslim, or Chinese men (who were mostly traders or soldiers) with local Indigenous women and their mixed offspring, but Strobel stops short of examining further the issues of race, religion, and ethnicity arising from these unions. Instead, he often identifies racism as the main cause of violence between colonizers and colonized people at the expense of the nuances and complexities surrounding intercultural relations. Strobel, however, gives due emphasis on how...