Early Modern European Nations and Empire

Empire matters? The historiography of imperialism in early America, 1492–1830





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Trevor Burnarda,

American Studies Department, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, East Sussex BN1

Available online 3 November 2006.

Abstract
Scholarship on European imperialism in the Americas has become increasingly prominent in the historiography of early America after a long period when the subject was hardly discussed. Historians have come to see that local experience in the Americas needs to be placed in a wider, comparative Atlantic context. They have realised that what united most peoples’ experiences in the Americas was that they lived as colonial subjects within colonies that were part of imperial polities. This article examines recent writings on European empires in the Americas, relating imperial history to related developments in fields such as Atlantic history. It suggests that renewed attention to imperialism allows historians to discuss in a fruitful fashion the relationship between power and authority in the formation of colonial societies and draws attention to the continuing importance of metropolitan influence in the articulation of colonial identities.

Keywords: Imperialism; Historiography; Inheritance; Experience; Spanish America; British America; French America; Atlantic