ABSTRACT
The “Atlantic World” encapsulates a geographic unit that stretches across an ocean and a mental construct that brings together Europe, the Americas, and western, sub-Saharan Africa. The school of historical writing it represents seeks to ask new questions about the flow and exchange of people, goods, and ideas. Despite the fruits of those intellectual labors, modern historians should not overlook the significance of the Mediterranean in the context of global trade, early empire, and cultural contact or the importance of early modern connections between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Early modern Europeans and early historians were well aware of the economic and cultural significance of the Mediterranean. The connections among Atlantic Ocean schemes and endeavors and those undertaken in the Mediterranean Sea need to be revisited in light of recent scholarship on the Atlantic World. At the same time, teasing out the webs of cultural expectations, trade, and people cannot deny the independence of developments in the ocean and the sea.
