Agents of European overseas empires
Private colonisers, 1450-1800
Agents of European overseas empires involves contributors who specialise on often overlooked aspects of imperial endeavour: ‘private’ European interests, companies, merchants or courtiers, who conducted their own activities both with and without the benediction of polities.
The chapters adopt intra- as well as inter-imperial perspectives and transport the reader to colonial America, the West Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, Batavia, or Ceylon, through the Dutch, English, French and Spanish empires. Agents of European overseas empires offers crucial insight on how these actors acquired profits and power and, in turn, laid the platforms for European global empires.
Delahaye is Associate Professor at Lyon 2 University, Peyrol-Kleiber is Associate Professor at Poitiers University, Roper is SUNY Distinguished Professor of History at the State University of New York—New Paltz, Van Ruymbeke is Professor of American History at Paris 8 University.