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A sweeping analytical narrative that reinterprets 350 years in the history of North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean islands
The Americas reinterprets the history of the western hemisphere in the era of European colonization. In a sweeping analytical narrative, it synthesizes 350 years in the history of North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean islands. Authors Eric Hinderaker and Rebecca Horn present a new account intended to change the way readers understand the processes and transformations that culminated in an era they label “the age of imperial fracture.”
The book begins by highlighting the dramatic demographic variations across the hemisphere before European arrival. It then considers distinct types of European colonies: composite colonies, planted atop Indigenous kingdoms with dense populations and rich silver mines; plantation colonies, in tropical and subtropical zones where enslaved labor produced commodities like sugar and tobacco; and provisioning colonies, which supplied food, raw materials, and enslaved Indigenous workers to other colonies. The authors also consider the vast expanses dominated by autonomous Indigenous and African-descended peoples. Despite immense variations, they argue that the Americas shared a common history.
Hinderaker and Horn offer the concept of an age of imperial fracture as an alternative to the age of Atlantic revolutions, which they consider to be inadequate to describe events of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They highlight the interconnectedness of European empires in the eighteenth century and trace the complex developments that led to the transformation of the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese empires in the Americas. Some people sought independence, but many others preferred loyalty to their empires. The age of imperial fracture forced American peoples to wrestle with colonial legacies that set the stage for new patterns of entanglement and new forms of nation and empire.
"This book demonstrates conclusively that the contrasting worlds that developed in the Americas emerged not because of the idiosyncrasies of varying cultures or different leadership styles, but because of certain structural factors that have generally been overlooked. It could only have been written by scholars with the depth of knowledge possessed by Hinderaker and Horn. It is a staggering accomplishment, a true tour de force—and a work that we have long needed."
"In The Americas: A New History of the Western Hemisphere, Eric Hinderaker and Rebecca Horn offer us “a thirty-thousand-foot view of colonization.” But theirs is no fly-by snapshot from the stratosphere. It is a high-resolution image, carefully assembled from ground-level details by authors who for years have been reading seemingly everything, thinking collaboratively, and honing their ideas in university classrooms. The result is far more than a long-overdue, clearly written synthesis of recent scholarship. Fresh insights, unexpected connections, and surprising entanglements leap from nearly every page. As accessible to newcomers as it will be revelatory to experts, this book is an extraordinary achievement."
"Combining their vast knowledge of the Americas, Eric Hinderaker and Rebecca Horn bring us a sweeping hemispheric history of how European powers claimed, fought over, and transformed the Americas, even as Indigenous peoples limited, shaped, and survived colonization."
"For too long, the Rio Grande has served as an impenetrable border for scholars of early America, separating Latin America from the United States and Canada as if these places were different worlds. As Eric Hinderaker and Rebecca Horn amply demonstrate, however, the Americas had a common history. Similar colonial processes worked both north and south, and the component parts of the Americas remained entangled throughout the colonial period and beyond. Their book provides a model of a hemispheric approach to early America, shedding new light on the two continents and their diverse peoples."
Eric Hinderaker is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Utah. He previously contributed to The Oxford Handbook of the Seven Years' War.
Rebecca Horn is Associate Professor of History at the University of Utah. She has previously contributed to Indigenous Histories and Cultures in North America.