Book

An Ocean of Rumours. News and Information in the Atlantic World

Across the early modern Atlantic world, news and information were commodities just as valuable as sugar, tobacco or cotton.

Author: Michiel van Groesen
Date: 15 April 2026
Links: Cambridge University Press

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.

An Ocean of Rumours explores this 'culture of anticipation' across the Atlantic world in Spain, Portugal, France, the Low Countries and England and also in the urban information centers of Renaissance Italy and the Holy Roman Empire. It 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.