Overview

Banks defines and applies the concept of communications in a far broader context than previous historical studies of communication, encompassing a range of human activity from sailing routes, to mapping, to presses, to building roads and bridges. He employs a comparative analysis of early modern French imperialism, integrating three types of overseas possessions usually considered separately - the settlement colony (New France), the tropical monoculture colony (the French Windward Islands), and the early Enlightenment planned colony (Louisiana) - offering a work of synthesis that unites the historiographies and insights from three formerly separate historical literatures. Banks challenges the very notion that a concrete ""empire"" emerged by the first half of the eighteenth century; in fact, French colonies remained largely isolated arenas of action and development. Only with the contraction and concentration of overseas possessions after 1763 on the Plantation Complex did a more cohesive, if fleeting, French empire first emerge.

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9780773531604

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Reviews

The range of this book is vast in terms of both of its topics - transport and communications by land, freshwater routes, and sea - and its geographical scope. H-Net Reviews A sophisticated treatment of the French Atlantic - the patterns it reveals are important and distinctive. The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord Banks's material is fascinating and his writing engaging - the book is a delight to read. The Canadian Historical Review Histories that compare and contrast the different parts of the French colonial world are few and far between. Banks is to be congratulated for having undertaken an ambitious inter-colonial study. A.J.B Johnston, author of Life and Religion at Louisbourg

Author Information

Kenneth Banks is an NEH fellow at the American Antiquarian Society. He is currently researching a book on French contraband in the Early Modern Atlantic World.

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