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...

Drawing from official correspondence, merchant's letters, ship's logs, and graphic archival material, Kenneth Banks explores the failure of transatlantic communications in helping to develop and maintain French imperialism during the height of France's first overseas empire in Quebec, New Orleans, and Saint Pierre, Martinique, in the eighteenth century. He provides historical context for the role of communications within the imperial nation-state, using a concept of communications that encompasses a range of human activity, from sailing routes, to mapping, to presses, to building roads and...