The Old World and the New


Book Description

This 1992 book shows how the discovery of the new world affected Europe intellectually, economically, and politically.




Born to Die


Book Description

The biological mingling of the Old and New Worlds began with the first voyage of Columbus. The exchange was a mixed blessing: it led to the disappearance of entire peoples in the Americas, but it also resulted in the rapid expansion and consequent economic and military hegemony of Europeans. Amerindians had never before experienced the deadly Eurasian sicknesses brought by the foreigners in wave after wave: smallpox, measles, typhus, plague, influenza, malaria, yellow fever. These diseases literally conquered the Americas before the sword could be unsheathed. From 1492 to 1650, from Hudson's Bay in the north to southernmost Tierra del Fuego, disease weakened Amerindian resistance to outside domination. The Black Legend, which attempts to place all of the blame of the injustices of conquest on the Spanish, must be revised in light of the evidence that all Old World peoples carried, though largely unwittingly, the germs of the destruction of American civilization.







Richelieu and Olivares


Book Description

Cardinal Richelieu is one of the best known and most studied statesmen in European history; his Spanish contemporary and rival, the Count-Duke of Olivares, one of the least known. The contrasting historical fortunes of the two men reflect the outcome of the great struggle in seventeenth-century Europe between France and Spain: the triumph of France assured the fame of Richelieu, while Spain's failure condemned Olivares to historical neglect. This fascinating book by the distinguished historian J. H. Elliott argues that contemporaries, for whom Olivares was at least as important as Richelieu, shared none of posterity's certainty about the inevitability of that outcome. His absorbing comparative portrait of the two men, as personalities and as statesmen, through their policies and their mutual struggle, offers unique insights into seventeenth-century Europe and the nature of power and statesmanship.




U.S. History


Book Description

U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender.




The Old World, the New World, and the Creation of the Modern World, 1400-1650


Book Description

"The Old World, the New World, and the Creation of the Modern World, 1400-1650: An Interpretive History" provides a unique look at the early years of European discovery and colonization, examining the impact of this period on the historical development of both the New and Old Worlds. The text is enhanced by the incorporation of a wide variety of original source material, allowing readers to benefit from a more first-hand experience of the historical events of the period. Providing the essential facts in conjunction with expert analysis, the volume poses a number of important questions to enable readers to construct their own analysis of the evidence presented. Uniquely, the volume goes beyond the standard textbook formula of "what, when and where" to delve more deeply into the specific (as well as the wider) significance of historical developments, thereby providing the platform for a textured, interpretive understanding of the history of the Atlantic world.




America in European Consciousness, 1493-1750


Book Description

For review see: Stephen J. Homick, in The Hispanic Historical Review (HAHR), vol. 77, no. 1 (February 1997); p. 78-80.




In the Wake of Columbus


Book Description

Attempts to assess the impact of the exploration and conquest of America on early modern Europe and considers several different subjects, because the existence of America influenced the development of European civilisation in a variety of ways.




The Old World, the New World, and the Creation of the Modern World, 14001650


Book Description

“The Old World, the New World, and the Creation of the Modern World, 1400–1650: An Interpretive History” provides a unique look at the early years of European discovery and colonization, examining the impact of this period on the historical development of both the New and Old Worlds. The text is enhanced by the incorporation of a wide variety of original source material, allowing readers to benefit from a more first-hand experience of the historical events of the period. Providing the essential facts in conjunction with expert analysis, the volume poses a number of important questions to enable readers to construct their own analysis of the evidence presented. Uniquely, the volume goes beyond the standard textbook formula of “what, when and where” to delve more deeply into the specific (as well as the wider) significance of historical developments, thereby providing the platform for a textured, interpretive understanding of the history of the Atlantic world.




European Encounters with the New World


Book Description

For review see: J.W. Schulte Nordholt, in Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, jrg. 107, nr. 4 (1994); p. 591-592.