Atlantic Families

Sarah Pearsall of Johns Hopkins examines how Anglo-American elite families used personal letters to hold themselves together across the Atlantic between roughly 1760 and 1815 — a period of revolution and imperial upheaval that made the ocean feel both larger and more urgent. The argument is that these letters weren't just communication; they were the medium through which Atlantic culture was built and family identity was sustained. Published by Oxford University Press and reviewed in the American Historical Review and English Historical Review, this is rigorous scholarship with accessible prose for an academic work. The honest caveat, noted by reviewers, is that the focus on educated Anglo-American elites necessarily limits how broadly the claims can extend. Specialists in Atlantic, colonial, or family history will find it rewarding; general readers should know it is genuinely academic in scope.