Napoleon's Atlantic: The Impact of Napoleonic Empire in the Atlantic World

This volume offers an introduction to recent scholarship on an understudied dimension of Napoleonic and Atlantic history, bringing together scholars working from Latin American cultural history to European diplomatic history. Without pretending to provide a comprehensive treatment of Napoleon's Atlantic impact, fourteen chapters trace the direct and indirect consequences of France's substantial post-1804/5 retreat from an Atlantic presence, and suggest how Napoleonic era world wars contributed to emerging post-imperial identities in the Americas. As such, the book offers something new to scholars of Napoleon, by tracing familiar themes from military, legal and administrative modernization to artistic policies and cultural influences to the Americas. It also provides a framework for Atlantic World scholars who have tended to view the many strands of Napoleonic influence as unrelated fragments rather than elements of a complex mosaic of complex, diverse interrelations.