Early Modern Themes: Old and New Worlds

*Early Modern Resources*
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Old and New Worlds

The Early Modern World (Internet Modern History Sourcebook) sections on the early modern world system, mercantile capitalism, trade and the 'new economy'

Columbus and the Age of Discovery (Millersville, Pennsylvania) searchable database of articles etc relating to 'encounter themes, as well as links to other sites

The European Voyages of Discovery (Department of History, University of Calgary) an online tutorial focusing on the Portugese and Spanish explorations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in Africa, America and Asia

Discoverers' Web (Andre Engels) all kinds of web materials on voyages of discovery, exploration and explorers

Cultural Readings: Colonization and Print in the Americas (University of Pennsylvania Library) online exhibition, exploring Europeans' attempts 'to "read" native cultures of the Americas' (and vice versa); six thematic sections, including 'promotion and possession', 'viewers and the viewed', 'colonial fictions, colonial histories'

Imagining Early Modern Worlds (Grant Williams) material for a course exploring 'some of the worlds discovered by early modernity', including images and reading

History of the Atlantic World 1500-1800 an international seminar at Harvard University (directed by Bernard Bailyn): seminar topics have included 'the movement of peoples' and 'cultural encounters', with abstracts of papers online, an Atlantic History discussion list at H-Net (see below) and an online newsletter, Atlantic Perspectives

H-Atlantic H-Atlantic is an online discussion list for Atlantic World History from 1500 to 1800, aimed at those interested in the interdisciplinary study of colonial North America and the United States, Europe, West Africa, the Caribbean, and South America in a transatlantic context. Book reviews, links to course syllabi, bibliographies, resources.

Atlantic World Roundtable AHA roundtable discussion (January 2000); summary of the panel; abstracts; links to course syllabi

1492: An Ongoing Voyage (Library of Congress) an exhibit looking at 'the rich mixture of societies' in five areas just before the arrival of Europeans, and at the subsequent contacts between them and the new arrivals from 1492-1600. Divided into six sections, including the life and myths of Columbus, 'inventing America', 'Europe claims America'

Some representations of America and their diffusion in Elizabethan England (Catherine Armstrong) online article that 'aims to refute the claim by historian Howard Mumford Jones that the relationship between Elizabethans and the New World was characterised by fear', examining texts that presented America and Americans in a positive way, to encourage English exploration and settlement

Life and Times of Henry Hudson (Ian Chadwick) material about this early seventeenth-century English explorer and his obsessive search for the northern passage, which was abruptly terminated in 1611 when his crew mutinied

La Salle Shipwreck Project (Texas Historical Commission) fascinating web site for the project to excavate the Belle, the wrecked ship of Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643-87). As well as the many photos chronicling the excavation work, there are materials relating to La Salle's ill-fated attempt to establish a French colony in Texas

Captain James Cook (Michael Dickinson) site on the life, voyages and times of Captain Cook; timelines for the voyages, maps etc

The George Raper collection (National Library of Australia) in 1787 the 17-year-old George Raper joined the crew of HMS Sirius; he made a record of the voyage that followed, before the ship was lost off Norfolk Island

Mapping Early Modern Worlds (Folger Library) developments in mapping: from the cosmos, the world, the nation, down to manorial boundaries

The maps of exploration (University of Virginia) online exhibition of early modern European maps of north America; commentary and digitised images, and related reading and online resources

Discovery and Exploration (American Memory) maps covering the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, documenting the processes of 'discovery' from coast to interior

The Cartographic Creation of New England (Osher Map Library) 'An exhibition of early maps that chronicles the effects of European exploration and settlement in north-eastern North America in creating a spatial concept called "New England."'

Decades of the New World (Richard Eden, 1555) extracts from a sixteenth-century English merchant's experience of West Africa (from the website for the anthology Reading about the World, vol. 2, which contains a number of extracts taken from the book)

Sir Joseph Banks' papers (State Library of New South Wales) the wide-ranging papers of an eighteenth-century naturalist, traveller, correspondent and royal adviser, who travelled with Cook on The Endeavour and was involved in the ill-fated expedition of The Bounty (digitised images, fully indexed)

Anthology of the Discovery of Australia (Rainer Radok) from the first European contacts, by the Dutch in the seventeenth century, extracts from their accounts of what they found

Colonial America (Diana Laulainen-Schein) a page for a 'mock' taught course; material on Spanish, British and French colonial America, West Indies, native American, African-Americans, women, etc. Plenty of useful links and texts

Early Modern India and World History (John Richards) essay attempting to 'place India (or South Asia) within its own context in the early modern world'

Early modern Japan (Robert Y Eng) part of a larger set of resources on the history of Japan

The Dutch Golden Age (N De Bruin) a promising site which aims to be 'a unique research and teaching instrument for Dutch early modern history', currently has sections on primary and secondary texts, bibliographical resources, research projects

Medieval and early modern Russia and Ukraine (Daniel C Waugh) resources for the teaching and learning of the early history (to about 1700) of the areas encompassed primarily by today's Ukraine and the European parts of Russia and some adjoining regions of Eastern Europe, and particularly the culture of the Orthodox East Slavs. The emphasis is on material available in English; intended primarily as a teaching resource rather than 'serious academic research'. It has sections on primary sources (English translations); visual materials; miscellaneous section (including maps, coins, genealogy); syllabi.

Uniting the Kingdoms? Britain 1066-1603 (The National Archives) an online exhibit asking: 'How did the inhabitants of the island of Britain think of themselves in the five and a half centuries between 1066 and 1603? Did they see themselves as British, or as English, Scottish or Welsh? Or was a local identity more important? And what did English dominance mean for Ireland and France, which had never been part of Britain?' It looks at interactions in politics, warfare, religion, trade and everyday life between England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and England's French territories. Including images of over seventy key documents. It's divided into five main 'galleries': Scotland, Wales, England, Ireland and France. There are also maps; and links to further materials within the text.

The Origins and Nature of New World Slavery (Gilda Lehrmann Institute) short 'guided readings' on a set of related topics, from the beginnings and justifications for slavery in the Americas through to abolition

Pictorial Images of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Jerome Handler and Michael Tuite) a searchable database of images; from African societies to New World auctions, as well as maps, and photos of a recent archaeological dig of a West Indies plantation

Slavery and the Slave Trade in Britain (Norton Topics Online) from early tensions (Locke espoused natural liberty but invested in the slave trade) to abolition, as well as horrifying accounts of conditions on board slave ships: a powerful collection of extracts

African American Voices (Digital History, University of Houston) including enslavement, the middle passage, arrival, conditions of life, childhood, family (the authorship is anonymous, but looks uncannily like the disappeared 'Excerpts from slave narratives' webpages of Steven Mintz, who is now at UH)