Peter C. Mancall. 2007. the Atlantic World and Virginia, 1550-1624

Peter C. Mancall. 2007. The Atlantic World and Virginia, 1550-1624. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press xii. 596 pp. ISBN 0-8078-3159-5 (cloth); 0-8078-5848-6 (paper). Published to mark the fourth centenary of the foundation of the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, this volume of essays on Virginia in the Atlantic world achieves two impressive feats. Firstly, the collection, which is based on the proceedings of an international conference held at Williamsburg in 2004, brings together a stellar list of leading scholars to discuss the arrival of the English in the region that native people referred to as Tsenacommacah at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Secondly, these scholars present us with research that maps out current trends in history writing on the Atlantic world, presenting a multifaceted picture of that heterogeneous intercultural zone in the period between 1550 and 1624. In so doing, this collection also suggests some of the lines of debate that currently shape the study of Atlantic history along with future directions for research. Peter Mancall has therefore done far more than bring together essays on early English Virginia. He has coordinated a collection that places Virginia in Atlantic context and that sheds light on much broader Atlantic themes. Indeed, as Mancall points out in his neat introduction to the volume, not all of the contributions discuss Virginia in direct terms, but all of the essays, whether they focus on native Americans in Virginia, reading culture in early modern England or trade routes across the Sahara, enrich our understanding of the wider Atlantic systems of which the fledgling colony was part.