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Bernard Bailyn, Atlantic History: Concept and Contours. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005. Pp. 149. $18.95.
Reviewed by Bryan Lamkin, Azusa Pacific University
Many of us can trace some of our formative thoughts about American history to Bernard Bailyn. I still remember reading, as a young graduate student, his Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967), and being challenged and excited by the author's ability to make sense of highly complex ideas in a succinct and readable manner. Though Atlantic History may not be as seminal as some of Bailyn's many other contributions to American history, it is nonetheless an important addition to the recently emerging field of the Atlantic world. Dividing his work into two parts the author covers, in a little over one hundred pages, the historiographical formation and key ideas of Atlantic world history.
Part One, "The Idea of Atlantic History," is a fascinating historiographical journey through the twentieth century as the notions of an Atlantic world emerged. He believes that the seeds of this field are not in imperial histories or exploration and discovery works, but in a Walter Lippmann editorial of 1917, which linked America's interests in the European war to "a profound web of interest" that connected the Western world....