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Atlantic Diasporas

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  • Subtitle:  Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500-1800
  • Editors:  Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan
  • Publisher:  Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009 – 307 pp.
  • LOC Permalink:  http://lccn.loc.gov/2008007948
  • Availability:  in print – see publisher's website

Review

Atlantic Diasporas is a recent effort at interdisciplinary collaboration between two customarily distinct fields, Atlantic history and the study of Port Jewry.  The newness of this enterprise is reflected in the fact that the complete list of all previous attempts could be enumerated in a single paragraph of the preface.

The authors tapped for submissions included both veterans of Sephardic Atlantic studies like Jonathan Israel and younger researchers such as Francesca Trivellato and Ronnie Perelis.  Their articles cover a broad range of topics including New Christians and Jews; monarchic empires and trading “nations”; The Americas and Europe – and the penultimate chapter makes a stimulating argument for bringing Africa’s Petite Côte into our treatments of the Jewish Atlantic world.  Extensive footnoting provides a rich array of cross-references that round out a very worthwhile read.


Contents

Jews and Crypto-Jews in Atlantic World Systems, 1500-1800
     Jonathan Israel

Jewish History in an Age of Atlanticism
     Adam Sutcliffe

The Founders of the Jewish Settlements in Dutch America
     Wim Klooster

Jews and the Making of British Transatlantic Commercial Culture
     Holly Snyder

Portuguese and other Maritime Trading Diasporas in the Atlantic
     Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert

Sephardic Merchants in the Early Modern Atlantic and Beyond
     Francesca Trivellato
  3


18


33


50


75


99
Jews and New Christians in Dutch Brazil
     Bruno Feitler

Slavery, Conversion, and Upward Mobility in Surinam
     Aviva Ben-Ur

Catholics, Jews, and Muslims in Early 17th c. Guin
é
     Peter Mark and Jos
é da Sliva Horta

Lost Tribes, Crypto-Jews, and Self-Fashioning
     Ronnie Perelis

Epilogue
     Natalie Zemon Davis

Notes
Index
123


152


170


195


213


219
299