Sandler Foreword© 2008 by Dennis Reinhartz Please see picture credits page for image credits. 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016 © 2008 Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Published by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. STERLING and the distinctive Sterling logo are registered trademarks of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. From the first forays of the Phoenicians, AUant'ic Ocean charts the collision between the daring European explorers and the native inhabitants of the New World to the sagas of conquest and colonization that followed the horrors of the slave trade to the slow flowering (continuecl un backjlcq,)ĪTLANTIC OCEAN THE ILLlJSTRATED HISTORY OF THE OCEAN THAT CHANGED THE WORLD The result is an epic as gripping as anything in fiction. As Sandler explains in his introduction: "Exploration, discovery, conquest, and piracy, political, industrial and technology upheavals, the greatest human migrations the world has ever lmown-it would be difficult to imagine a more compelling saga Yet that is but part of the story of the making of the Atlantic World, a story dominated by human beings pitted against the sea, the natural desire for freedom, and humankind's determination to expand their horizons no matter what the cost." In tracing the evolution of the "Atlantic community," Sandler focuses on the exchanges not only of people, goods, and technologies but of ideas and philosophies across vast distances of space and time. This is the first illustrated history of the Atlantic World-a lavish volume at the forefront of a dynamic new vein of historic scholarship based on the notion that the Americas, Africa, and Europe together constituted a thriving regional system from the late fifteenth century to the present. In truth, it was all of these things-and much, much more. It has been seen variously as an impenetrable and mysterious void, a gulf to be crossed, an avenue of trade, a field of battle, a source of riches, a pathway to freedom, and a gateway to slavery.
Or too long, both scholars and the general reading public have had a fundamentally incomplete and flawed view of the Atlantic Ocean's unique place in history. ATLANTIC♦ OCEAN THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE OCEAN THAT CHANGED THE WORLD