A01=Jack Bouchard
Atlantic
Author_Jack Bouchard
Canada
Category=KCZ
Category=NHB
Category=NHK
Category=NHTM
cod
codfish
colonial settlement
environmental history
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
fifteenth century
fisheries
historiography
maritime
sixteenth century
Terra Nova
Product details
- ISBN 9780300264357
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 06 Jan 2026
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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A bottom-up story of the fishworkers, whalers, First Nations, merchantwomen, oceans, and animals who together made a new colonial world in the early Atlantic
In the early decades of the sixteenth century, mariners from across Europe forged a vast seasonal fishery along the coasts of the northwest Atlantic. Long before there was Newfoundland or Canada, Europeans called this floating colony Terra Nova, and they laid the foundation for a history of extracting food and fuel that extended into the twentieth century. Once one of the largest European colonies in the Atlantic basin, Terra Nova has never before been considered in its historical entirety or in a wider Atlantic context.
Historian Jack Bouchard tells the story of Terra Nova, showing that its early development was shaped by colonial histories across the Atlantic world. He demonstrates that when we put food production, ocean environments, and maritime labor at the center of the story, we can see the overlooked lives and voices of those who made change in these early years. The result is a new history of the Atlantic world: one where humans migrate in the wake of ice and fish, where Indigenous American and Arctic trade routes are joined to transatlantic exchange, where colonies exist without settlement or empire, and where food production, labor, and maritime landscapes are at the center of our shared history.
In the early decades of the sixteenth century, mariners from across Europe forged a vast seasonal fishery along the coasts of the northwest Atlantic. Long before there was Newfoundland or Canada, Europeans called this floating colony Terra Nova, and they laid the foundation for a history of extracting food and fuel that extended into the twentieth century. Once one of the largest European colonies in the Atlantic basin, Terra Nova has never before been considered in its historical entirety or in a wider Atlantic context.
Historian Jack Bouchard tells the story of Terra Nova, showing that its early development was shaped by colonial histories across the Atlantic world. He demonstrates that when we put food production, ocean environments, and maritime labor at the center of the story, we can see the overlooked lives and voices of those who made change in these early years. The result is a new history of the Atlantic world: one where humans migrate in the wake of ice and fish, where Indigenous American and Arctic trade routes are joined to transatlantic exchange, where colonies exist without settlement or empire, and where food production, labor, and maritime landscapes are at the center of our shared history.
Jack Bouchard is assistant professor of environmental history at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. He has published widely on the histories of fishing, islands, and foodways. He lives in Highland Park, NJ.
