The history of early modern western Europe is experiencing an identity crisis. More and more frequently, the question crops up as to whether the appropriate unit of analysis is nation state or empire. The years from 1500 onward were a period of extraordinary overseas expansion, but the idea of empire also has added currency because, even within Europe, most states were actually conglomerations of different kingdoms, principalities and provinces, not all of which had entered the state on an equal footing. To contribute further to the unit of analysis confusion, some have suggested that, in regard to many issues, these states operated as regions of an Atlantic world and that such a world is the best conceptual framework. While Great Britain and the topic of a greater British history has occasioned the most spilling of ink on this matter, nearly all western European countries are at risk of being imagined anew or reconfigured as communities.

In keeping with this renewed interest in empire, an impressive number of books and articles on the subject of world trade and colonies have been produced over the past decade. Perhaps inspired or provoked by the great global histories of capitalism by Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein, a transnational perspective pervades these works, which trace the expansion of western European sovereigns and the adventurers and trading companies they licensed into the Americas, south-eastern Asia and the subcontinent, and coastal Africa.