Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth, Beyond the Ocean. France and the Atlantic World from the Crusades to the Age of Revolutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2026. £26.99.

Reviewed by Jeremy Black

It may be news to some, but France was a major imperial power in the early-modern period, and the claim that Hodson and Rushforth challenge traditional narratives of empire could do with some qualification. Nor is the argument that colonialism was a hybrid with agency widely distributed new.

Yet, there is much that is very positive about this book which, in coming from the trade section of OUP, notably in terms of attractive price and well-chosen illustrations, does not sacrifice scholarship. Far from it. Hodson, a Professor at Brigham Young, and Rushforth, the editor-in-chief of the Huntington Library Quarterly, have worked very hard on this and the result is a fine understanding of the many strands of French Atlantic imperialism, although I feel that the religious dimension is underplayed.

Hudson and Rushforth also look at the empire’s impact of France, and this offers much of interest, not least with reference to the Haitian revolution.

At the same time, a more rounded account of French policy, demographics, economy and culture might suggest that empire was more marginal. There also needs to be more of an understanding of the significance of the Franco-Spanish dimension and how it changed in 1700. A very worthwhile book, but incomplete and insufficiently self-critical.