“Breadth and Depth”: Some Remarks on Empire, Atlantic History and Vast Early America (Round-table II)

This essay explores the evolution of the study of the British-American Empire in the last 50 years, concluding with some comments on the state of current historiography and some speculation on where it might be heading. It contends that the “new social history” permitted colonial America to be studied in unprecedented depth, but also caused a “fragmentation” of our understanding of the larger field of Empire. After a few historiographical false starts, “Atlantic history” allowed a combination..