Marsh, Ben (Author)
Cambridge University Press
Physical Details: 500
Language: English
One of the greatest hopes and expectations that accompanied American colonialism – from its earliest incarnation – was that Atlantic settlers would be able to locate new sources of raw silk, with which to satiate the boundless desire for luxurious fabrics in European markets. However, in spite of the great upheavals and achievements of Atlantic plantation, this ambition would never be fulfilled. By taking the commercial failure of silk seriously and examining numerous experiments across New Spain, New France, British North America and the early United States, Ben Marsh reveals new insights into aspiration, labour, environment, and economy in these societies. Each devised its own dreams and plans of cultivation, framed by the particularities of cultures and landscapes. Writ large, these dreams would unravel one by one: the attempts to introduce silkworms across the Atlantic world ultimately constituted a step too far, marking out the limits of Europeans' seemingly unbounded power.
...MoreReview Manuela Martini (2022) Review of "Unravelled Dreams: Silk and the Atlantic World, 1500–1840". Economic History Review (pp. 288-289).
Review George J. Sheridan (2022) Review of "Unravelled Dreams: Silk and the Atlantic World, 1500–1840". American Historical Review (pp. 469-470).
Review Alexandra M. Macdonald (2021) Review of "Unravelled Dreams: Silk and the Atlantic World, 1500–1840". Agricultural History (pp. 542-545).
Review Paul D Blanc (April 2021) Review of "Unravelled Dreams: Silk and the Atlantic World, 1500–1840". Environmental History (pp. 373-375).
Review Peter A. Coclanis (2022) Review of "Unravelled Dreams: Silk and the Atlantic World, 1500–1840". Journal of Interdisciplinary History (pp. 426-428).
Review Patricia Fara (2020) Review of "Unravelled Dreams: Silk and the Atlantic World, 1500–1840". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 594-596).
Similar Citations
Book
Sluyter, Andrew;
(2012)
Black Ranching Frontiers: African Cattle Herders of the Atlantic World, 1500--1900
(/isis/citation/CBB001421797/)
Book
Newman, Simon P;
(2013)
A New World of Labor: The Development of Plantation Slavery in the British Atlantic
(/isis/citation/CBB001422269/)
Book
Sarson, Steven;
(2013)
The Tobacco-Plantation South in the Early American Atlantic World
(/isis/citation/CBB001451987/)
Book
Law, Robin;
Suzanne, Schwarz;
Silke, Strickrodt;
(2013)
Commercial Agriculture, the Slave Trade and Slavery in Atlantic Africa
(/isis/citation/CBB001422242/)
Article
John E. Crowley;
(2016)
Sugar Machines: Picturing Industrialized Slavery
(/isis/citation/CBB194086091/)
Article
Marco Meniketti;
(2020)
The Bush Hill Sugar Plantation: A West Indies Case Study in Developmental Capitalism
(/isis/citation/CBB666453433/)
Book
Anja Timmermann;
(2014)
Indigo. Die Analyse eine ökonomischen Wissensbestandes im 18. Jahrhundert
(/isis/citation/CBB633173780/)
Book
Delbourgo, James;
Dew, Nicholas;
(2008)
Science and Empire in the Atlantic World
(/isis/citation/CBB000774276/)
Book
Charlotte Cosner;
(2015)
The Golden Leaf: How Tobacco Shaped Cuba and the Atlantic World
(/isis/citation/CBB162719120/)
Article
Vera Keller;
(2021)
A “Wild Swing to Phantsy”: The Philosophical Gardener and Emergent Experimental Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World
(/isis/citation/CBB075029309/)
Book
Feeser, Andrea;
(2013)
Red, White, and Black Make Blue: Indigo in the Fabric of Colonial South Carolina Life
(/isis/citation/CBB001452060/)
Article
Evans, Chris;
(2012)
The Plantation Hoe: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Commodity, 1650--1850
(/isis/citation/CBB001212882/)
Book
Danielle C. Skeehan;
(2020)
The Fabric of Empire: Material and Literary Cultures of the Global Atlantic, 1650-1850
(/isis/citation/CBB516070638/)
Book
Sharma, Jayeeta;
(2011)
Empire's Garden: Assam and the Making of India
(/isis/citation/CBB001421813/)
Article
Timothy P. Barnard;
Joanna W. C. Lee;
(2022)
A Spiteful Campaign: Agriculture, Forests, and Administering the Environment in Imperial Singapore and Malaya
(/isis/citation/CBB114153520/)
Article
Ross, Corey;
(2014)
The Plantation Paradigm: Colonial Agronomy, African Farmers, and the Global Cocoa Boom, 1870s--1940s
(/isis/citation/CBB001421537/)
Book
Kalle Kananoja;
(2021)
Healing Knowledge in Atlantic Africa: Medical Encounters, 1500–1850
(/isis/citation/CBB973093529/)
Book
James W. Martin;
(2018)
Banana Cowboys: The United Fruit Company and the Culture of Corporate Colonialism
(/isis/citation/CBB648389985/)
Book
Richard J. Follett;
Sven Beckert;
Peter A. Coclanis;
Barbara Hahn;
(2016)
Plantation kingdom: The American South and its global commodities
(/isis/citation/CBB715728996/)
Book
Michitake Aso;
(2018)
Rubber and the Making of Vietnam: An Ecological History, 1897–1975
(/isis/citation/CBB827064585/)
Be the first to comment!