100 Books Like Making Ireland British, 1580-1650

This is and will remain the example of historical research made by one of the leading authorities in the field of Atlantic history. Elliott’s book set the agenda by investigating and assessing the complex array of causes and consequences which brought England and Spain to have an ever-lasting cultural, economic, political, and religious influence on the history of North America and Latin America. 

This book tells the story of the Irish migrants who settled on the island of Montserrat from the early seventeenth century to the mid-eighteenth century. Through a masterful combination of different sources, Akenson reconstructs the colonial world of the Irish, and their ambitions to become rulers and no longer ruled within the lucrative and unruly context of the Caribbean.

This remains so far, the best documented investigation of the earlier contacts between England and the North Atlantic world from the late fifteenth century to the early seventeenth century. Superbly researched and written, it permits to unveil the complexity and the mystery behind the “new world” with which England entered contact. 

This is a fine example of superb historical research. Codignola’s book provides a wealth of details to chart the triangular connection which weaved tormented England, the desolate colony of Newfoundland, and the authorities of the Holy See during the seventeenth century. Thirty-four years after its publication it is still a must-read. 

Notorious for its violence, the 17th century is also a time of sweeping change. Change ignites resistance. When I first started researching Irish history, I was well aware of Cromwell’s march, and soon discovered much more and perhaps worse. How could people survive under constant threat and fear? How could humans justify such cruelty? This book examines several horrific events, the people and the policies that allowed them to happen—in the interest of learning from history that which we should never repeat.

Between 1640 and 1660, England, Scotland, and Ireland experienced civil war, invasion, religious radicalism, parliamentary rule, and the restoration of the monarchy. None of that will surprise historians of Britain, but they may not realize the impact of these events on Britain’s new colonies across the Atlantic. Some of them remained loyal to the king until his victorious opponents sent the first major Transatlantic expeditionary force to subdue them. 

Pestana shows how war and rebellion in Britain increased both the proportion of unfree labourers and ethnic diversity in the colonies. Neglected by London, several of them developed trade networks; some entered the slave trade. By 1660, the English Atlantic had become religiously polarized, economically interconnected, socially exploitative, and ideologically unstable.

This recommendation is a work of fiction. Overall, Allende is an incredible storyteller whose characters seem so real that by the end of the book, you feel like you know them in the same way you know family or an old friend. Island Beneath the Sea, set in 18th - 19th century Haiti then in New Orleans, is a story that illustrates the beautiful messes we create in our lives through those that we love and those that we hate. Drawing on the chaos of American slavery and the Haitian Revolution, Allende’s book draws on themes related to slavery, politics, history, and family drama all of which illustrate what can happen when cultural values (i.e. social constructions of race) are attached to specific bodies (i.e. Black and White women).

Pau Hana is a concise overview of the immigration of workers from around the Pacific and the world, which created Hawai‘i's multiethnic community in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The immigrants were recruited by the Hawaiian Monarchy and white sugar planters as laborers for their highly profitable plantations. Workers arrived from China, Portugal, Japan, Puerto Rico, Korea, the Philippines, and even Norway, and settled in the islands. Takaki details the work they did, the camp housing, the abuses and retaliation, the opium and alcohol, the gambling and prostitution, and the worker strikes that eventually resulted in better wages and working conditions.

Although not exclusively focused on the Caribbean, the articles in this volume illuminate the long and complex history of sugar production in the early modern Iberian world, beginning with the Iberian Peninsula itself and expanding into the Atlantic island groups and across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and Brazil. The last article focuses on sugar production in seventeenth-century Barbados, underscoring that a long history of sugar cultivation preceded the better-known establishment of sugar production in the English and French islands. Here the reader will learn how sixteenth-century Europeans eagerly incorporated sugar into their cuisines and diet, at times consuming prodigious quantities. Together these articles present a fascinating and often surprising early history of a commodity that has had a huge impact on the world.

When I begin researching a new historical subject I usually turn first to children’s books for a quick, broad overview. For Southern USA plantation life, Kalman’s book, part of the Historic Communities series, is a perfect introduction to the subject of southern plantations, with splendidly detailed drawings of homes and outbuildings, a glossary of terms, and many photographs from the latter decades before emancipation. Its focus is split between the planters’ lives and the lives of those they enslaved, introducing readers to every facet of this setting and the challenges faced by those who lived there. A great springboard into the subject for homeschooling.