Introduction

In recent years a number of studies have created a surge of new interest in the Atlantic dimensions of Western history: in migration and settlement patterns, family organization and social structures, demography and politics, agriculture and religion, economic development and consumer behaviour. The burden of these investigations suggests that the modern world has been shaped by a complex series of dialectics that link together the histories of many different and distinct cultures in a vast global system. It also suggests that the intricate societies that made up the Atlantic world shared certain common characteristics as well as marked differences and points to the possibilities for exploring a whole host of historical issues and for making explicit intertopical comparisons.