After the Fact Interactive: Envisioning the Atlantic World, Vol. 2

This module invites students to explore the historiography and sources of the Atlantic Basin during the age of exploration. Once a nearly impassable barrier, Columbus and subsequent explorers punctured the veil of ignorance and uncertainty cloaking the Atlantic. In doing so, they raised the curtain on a new, dramatic chapter of cross-cultural encounters whose cultural, political, economic, and biological exchanges transformed the modern world.

Introduction to historiography, using the civilizations of the Atlantic basin as case studies.

This module invites students to explore the historiography and sources of the Atlantic Basin during the age of exploration. Once a nearly impassable barrier, Columbus and subsequent explorers punctured the veil of ignorance and uncertainty cloaking the Atlantic. In doing so, they raised the curtain on a new, dramatic chapter of cross-cultural encounters whose cultural, political, economic, and biological exchanges transformed the modern world.

James West Davidson received his B.A. from Haverford College and his Ph.D. from Yale University. A historian who has pursued a full-time writing career, he is the author of numerous books, among them After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection (with Mark H. Lytle), The Logic of Millennial Thought: Eighteenth Century New England, and Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure (with John Rugge). He is co-editor with Michael Stiff of the Oxford New Narratives in American History, in which his most recent book appears: 'They Say': Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race.