Beyond the Ocean

Abstract This book reimagines the history of France’s first overseas empire, tracing its roots from medieval crusading ventures to the revolutionary upheavals of the late eighteenth century. Rejecting top-down narratives of imperial design, the book emphasizes the decentralized, contingent, and negotiated nature of French expansion. Across twelve chapters, it follows merchants, mariners, missionaries, enslaved people, Indigenous nations, and royal officials as they forged connections linking Eur