Readers will genuinely enjoy The Global Refuge-its colorful characters are fun to read about. * Allan Tulchin, Journal of Modern History *
Stanwood's study is remarkable. He has woven together so many different narratives and dimensions in his account of a relatively small group of people, but whose significance far exceeded their number. He has helped to move these communities, which might - at least from a Eurocentric perspective - be regarded as peripheral, and to bring them centre stage. In so doing, he has mapped out not only a critical part of Huguenot history, but importantly he has also demonstrated how those Huguenots shaped, and were shaped by, the broader currents of eighteenth-century globalisation. * Kenneth Austin, University of Bristol, Huguenot Society Journal *
A stimulating and well-researched book that constitutes a fundamental read for all scholars interested in the global Reformation, as well as in the long history of religious migration and mobility....[It] succeeds in reconfiguring the history of the Huguenot diaspora in two important ways. First, Stanwood adopts a global lens through which he recovers the 'connected histories' of Huguenot communities dispersed throughout North America, the Caribbean, and South Africa....Second, Stanwood bridges the gap among several different historiographies, reconnecting religion, commerce, and empire. * Diego Pirillo, American Historical Review *
A lively human voice runs throughout this epic tale. The migrants, with editorial assistance from Stanwood, emerge as real people with anxieties and aspirations, failures and successes. In the end, Stanwood advances a remarkable synthesis of the global reach of the Huguenot diaspora and makes a compelling argument for the interplay of confessional determination and colonial enterprise in the far-reaching early modern Atlantic. * Raymond A. Mentzer, French History *
Stanwood's ambitious...The Global Refuge...represents a welcome change by bringing French Calvinist exiles into a larger global story and weaving together the disparate histories of Huguenot settlements (those imagined and those realized) from South Africa to North America, the Caribbean, South America, the Indian Ocean, and Australia....[It] transforms the narrative of victimization that has long dominated histories of the Huguenot diaspora into a fascinating tale of agency and invention....In Stanwood's hands, Huguenots figure less as persecuted and beleaguered refugees than as merchant venturers, colonial promoters, foreign spymasters, and intrepid settlers, eager to embrace the imperial dreams of their benefactors, or fashion their own, in the emergent overseas empires of the British and Dutch....Remarkable in its breadth of geographic and chronological coverage, The Global Refuge reconfigures the grand story of the Huguenot diaspora. * S. Amanda Eurich, H-France Forum *
Owen Stanwood's The Global Refuge is the first in-depth exploration of the Huguenot diaspora through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As the Huguenots established communities and networks stretching from South Carolina to South Africa, including the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, he has quite a lot of ground to cover, and he does it thoroughly, deftly supplementing existing scholarship with extensive and impressive archival research. The result is a complex picture of early modern European expansion that skillfully addresses the overarching tension between, as he puts it, Eden and empire that characterized the aspirations and experience of the displaced French Protestant population....Stanwood's truly impressive archival research allows him to set relatively unknown figures, stories, and settlements alongside better-known events, texts, and personalities. * Ellen McClure, H-France Forum *
A bold, big story of French empire that zooms in with fine detail to colonial outposts around the world as it recounts the history of Huguenot migration after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes through the decades following the French Revolution....A geopolitical layer...reveals the dynamics of competition between empires, an institutional layer...reconstructs the mechanisms that transferred resources, information, and people around the world, and an individual layer filled with dramatic stories of the personal adventure, dreams, and loss....Stanwood's focus on the movement of Huguenots at the edges of the empire leverages the micro to reveal the macro. His method and structure illuminate shifts in imperial relations among European powers and cultural transformations from an age of monarchs to an age of revolutions and republics....Sets a high bar for anyone wanting to tackle an empire-sized research question. * Joy Palacios, H-France Forum *
Readers will be thrilled to find this story, which in previous studies has usually been recounted from national or Atlantic perspectives, brought together in one volume that is a veritable tour de force. * Ruth Whelan, H-France Forum *
The Global Refuge is a good book, well written and inspiring, coming at a time when religion and migration continue to shape the world. Stanwood made the best possible use of the literature produced so far, especially that produced on the occasion of the three-hundredth anniversary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. * Philippe Denis, University of KwaZulu-Natal *
The style is detailed and lively, and although academic, is fully readable for any non-academic reader. It is full of vivid portraits of interesting characters, and detailed explanations of why various schemes came to nought or (in a few cases) prospered. All in all, it is an excellent addition to the Huguenot library. * Huguenot Times *
The story of the forced exile of Protestants from France in the seventeenth century has usually been presented as a tragedy. In this lively and fascinating study, Owen Stanwood does not play down the tribulations faced by the exiles, but also emphasizes the possibilities that opened up for them as they founded new communities on several continents and became key players in the construction of the British and Dutch overseas empires. This first comprehensive study of the Huguenot global diaspora will be of great interest to readers of early modern European and global history. * David A. Bell, Princeton University *
Driven from their homeland by Louis XIV's ferocious persecution, French Protestants scattered across Europe and around the Atlantic World, seeking their fortunes in the service of the British and Dutch empires. Like no historian before him, Owen Stanwood captures the full sweep of this remarkable diaspora in a compelling, highly readable narrative. * Allan Greer, author of Mohawk Saint: Catherine Tekakwitha and the Jesuits *
Owen Stanwood's fresh look at refugee Huguenots shows how they leveraged their assets -- eagerness to advance their religion in an age of strong confessional identities, access to authorities in a hierarchical society, willingness to relocate far afield in a time of European expansion -- to carve out places where they could survive and prosper. By establishing their role in developing other people's empires, Stanwood moves displaced Huguenots to the center of early-modern politics and -- by implication -- of future historical studies. * Carolyn Chappell Lougee, Stanford University *
As refugee crises overwhelm twenty-first century nations, Owen Stanwood's The Global Refuge offers a wholly new global history of early modern Europe's first world-circling refugee crisis, the expulsion of 150,000 Protestants * Huguenotsfrom France in the 1680s. Scattering into Europe's Protestant nations, the New World, and even Africa, Huguenots found themselves welcomed and derided, valued but often resented. The Global Refuge is the first major international history of the Huguenot exile, and its vivid prose and deep, encyclopedic research compel attention amidst our own, often tragic, refugee crises.Jon Butler, Yale University *
This book offers the first global history of the Huguenot diaspora, explaining how and why these refugees became such ubiquitous characters in the history of imperialism. * Reformation Research Consortium (RefoRC) *
