• ""Contents""; ""Tables and Maps""; ""Preface""; ""A Note on Terms and Translations""; ""Introduction""; ""The Rise of the French Atlantic to 1763""; ""Proclaiming Peace in
• 1713: A Case Study""; ""Sea and Land Connections""; ""State Ceremonies and Local Agendas""; ""Travel and Assembly, Disorder and Revolt""; ""Merchant Networks and Imperial Dependence""; ""Authorityâ€?s Fragmented Voice""; ""Conclusion""; ""Appendices""; ""Notes""; ""Bibliography""; ""Index""

Banks defines and applies the concept of communications in a far broader context than previous historical studies of communication, encompassing a range of human activity from sailing routes, to mapping, to presses, to building roads and bridges. He employs a comparative analysis of early modern French imperialism, integrating three types of overseas possessions usually considered separately - the settlement colony (New France), the tropical monoculture colony (the French Windward Islands), and the early Enlightenment planned colony (Louisiana) - offering a work of synthesis that unites the historiographies and insights from three formerly separate historical literatures. Banks challenges the very notion that a concrete "empire" emerged by the first half of the eighteenth century; in fact, French colonies remained largely isolated arenas of action and development. Only with the contraction and concentration of overseas possessions after 1763 on the Plantation Complex did a more cohesive, if fleeting, French empire first emerge.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)