Atlantic Wars

From the Fifteenth Century to the Age of Revolution

By: Geoffrey Plank

Narrated by: Derek Perkins

In a sweeping account, Atlantic Wars explores how warfare shaped the experiences of the peoples living in the watershed of the Atlantic Ocean between the late Middle Ages and the Age of Revolution.

Nearly everywhere they went, imperial soldiers, missionaries, colonial settlers, and traveling merchants sought local allies, and consequently they often incorporated themselves into African and indigenous North and South American diplomatic, military, and commercial networks. Indigenous and colonial communities felt vulnerable in these circumstances, and many believed that they had to engage in aggressive military action - or, at a minimum, issue dramatic threats - in order to survive. Examining the contours of European dominance, this work emphasizes its contingent nature and geographical limitations, the persistence of conflict and its inescapable impact on non-combatants' lives.

Addressing warfare at sea, warfare on land, and transatlantic warfare, Atlantic Wars covers the Atlantic world from the Vikings in the north, through the North American coastline and Caribbean, to South America and Africa. Geoffrey Plank underscores how the formative experience of combat brought together widely separated people in a common history.

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Excellant Survey of the Atlantic Littoral 16-19 C

Book covers a lot of territory, historical, social, literary, military and geographical. The enormity of the coverage is breathtaking and necessarily shallow. Not necessarily a bad thing, assuming access to the notes and bibliography for further study. The books true value was the retelling of the synergistic effect of events in one area of the Atlantic littoral on all the rest. I have studied a lot of the subjects and geography--in isolation. This is more of a mural than a portrait, and what it lacks in specific detail it more than makes up in scope. what occurred in the West coasts of Europe and Africa affected events on the East coasts of North and South America and all points in between and vice versa. And there are 2 constants that bind the story together, the Sea obviously, and the appetite for labor in the form of colonists and slaves, the need was universal and nothing was unaffected. Points up the danger of thinking ones own history was unique beyond the bounds of time and geography; it is most assuredly and depressingly not! In short it was the best of times and it was the worst of times! Narration was good, the narrator sounded interesting and interested, always a good sign.

Detailed, But a Bit Aimless

This book had a lot of great details and was obviously researched very well, but it failed to wrap everything up into a single point. That's not a deal killer if you're just looking for lots of very interesting histories, cause this book has them. The book gave a great number of interesting stories about life on the Atlantic during the centuries covered. Would love a followup from the time period after this book to the present day.

A Broad New Military History

Plank has crafted a wide ranging new military history of the Atlantic world spanning hundreds of years. Readers looking for a traditional military history - a play by play of various conflicts - will be disappointed. New military history is more focused on the socioeconomic and cultural impacts of warfare than on particular conflicts and battles. Plank presents a thorough history that looks at the impacts of conflicts on combatants, societies, and especially upon the Atlantic Slave Trade as European, African, and American worlds collided to create a new violent Atlantic world in the early modern era.

Given the vast subject matter that Plank took on in this work and the various centuries that it encompassed, the work is split into three sections, which the reader can almost look at as three separate works as each section dealt with different aspects of warfare during the early modern age. What may seem like a wide ranging amount of unrelated topics are brought together nicely in Plank's conclusion as he summarizes the ways that these various cultures interacted to create the world we live in today.

This book is recommended for readers who already have some familiarity with the history of this era or with early naval history as the author does not spend a lot of time looking at specific wars but is more interested in trends and patterns spanning several centuries.

Perkins narrates the scholarly work well but I found myself getting annoyed with how he pronounced Spanish words and with how he said the word "combatants."

Topical, not necessarily chronological, but very interesting

This was a good supplement to some of the other historical nonfiction I’ve read this year about Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Mutiny on the Bounty. The first two parts of the book discuss topics related to Atlantic warfare, trade, and colonization; the third part is essentially three chronological case studies that put those concepts into context. A great Audible Plus membership listen — glad I read it but wouldn’t want to use a credit on it.

A scattered selection of micro-theses

the author seemingly couldn't decide what he wanted to write about and so ended up writing about far too many concepts I superficial terms. most concepts were haphazardly mashed together, without any clear chronology until the last third of the book, making learning from the book unnecessarily difficult and again, superficial. also, only about 1 third of the book is dedicated to oceanic warfare contrary to what one might reasonably expect.