Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- INTRODUCTION: Charting Courses -- CHAPTER ONE: Embarkation -- CHAPTER TWO: Sea Legs -- CHAPTER THREE: Shipmates -- CHAPTER FOUR: Unbroken Horizons -- CHAPTER FIVE: Crossing Lines -- CHAPTER SIX: Tedium -- CHAPTER SEVEN: Tempests -- CHAPTER EIGHT: Land Ho! -- CONCLUSIONL: The Journey On -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W
Summary
"This book tells the story of how people experienced the eighteenth-century crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, exploring the transformative journey undertaken by the thousands of Europeans who journeyed in search of a better life. Stephen Berry shows how the ships, on which passengers were contained in close quarters for months at a time, operated as compressed "frontiers," where diverse groups encountered one another and established new patterns of social organization. As he argues that experiences aboard ship served as a profound conversion experience for travelers, both spiritually and culturally, Berry reframes the history of Atlantic migrations, giving the ocean and the ship a more prominent role in Atlantic history. The ocean was more than a backdrop for human events: it actively shaped historical experiences by furnishing a dissociative break from normal patterns of life and a formative stage in travelers' processes of collective identification"-- Provided by publisher