An Ocean of Rumours

The first book to argue that news was as valuable as sugar or tobacco in the early modern Atlantic World.

Across the early modern Atlantic world, there were other commodities as valuable as sugar, tobacco or cotton: news and information. Michiel van Groesen argues that the irregularity of their arrival created a distinctive 'culture of anticipation' and that the rhythm of circulation underpinned all transatlantic exchanges in the period.Across the early modern Atlantic world, there were commodities just as valuable as sugar, tobacco or cotton: news and information. However, crossing an ocean beset by wars, pirates and bad weather made transoceanic communications irregular at best, posing significant challenges to the weekly European news cycle. With infrequent access to information, publishers had to navigate between speculation and confirmation, printing everything they could without losing credibility or customers. Michiel van Groesen explores this 'culture of anticipation' across the Atlantic world in Spain, Portugal, France, the Low Countries and England and also in the urban information centres of Renaissance Italy and the Holy Roman Empire. He argues that news from the Atlantic world underpinned all transatlantic exchanges, giving newspapers their rightful place in Atlantic history, and the Atlantic world its place in the history of news.