Nowadays there are international conferences on Mediterranean
history, and in the University of Oxford, in very recent years,
seminars have been dedicated to it. 'Atlantic studies' have spawned
books and articles with increasing frequency for nearly 40 years
and, since 1955, a distinguished Spanish periodical has been
devoted to them. This book is an attempt to explore some of the
more promising possible connections between the two subjects.
Part One gives an account of late medieval theatres of expansion
in the western Mediterranean. Part Two sketches the beginnings of
exploration and colonisation in the Atlantic. Throughout, the main
quest is for elements of continuity or discontinuity between the
Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds and for approaches to an
answer to Horace's question:
... quid terras alio calentis
sole mutamus?
- which I would paraphrase, 'Why do some of us bother with alien
climes?' At the cost of some cross-references and summary
repetitions, I have tried to make each chapter .independent of the
others, as many readers find this convenient. A few pages of
introduction are devoted to a conspectus of the problems which
afflict students and absorb historians. Conclusions, which are
intended to address these problems, are advanced chapter by
chapter, as I go along. If I try to suggest new arguments wherever
they occur to me, this is not out of contrariness or 'revisionism' but
simply because, in an adult life largely given to teaching, I have
come to value books which seek to be stimulating at the risk of
being wrong. In any case, I like the subject too much to see it
fossilised in rocks of orthodoxy.
Much of the material, including the whole of Chapter 9, was
accumulated with the aid of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship: I
take pleasure and pride in acknowledging the kindness of the
Trustees. A travel grant from the Trustees of the Arnold Historical
Essay Fund allowed me to do some research in the Canary Islands.