The global expansion of the early modern European empires challenged their old, land-based systems of defending borders and trade. Now there were issues such as rights to fishing waters and smuggling. This volume of eleven essays sets out to examine how successfully early modern rulers dealt with problems of watery borders, rampant piracy, trade in far-flung colonies, and the slave trade.

Katherine Aron-Beller explores the role of the Inquisition in Modena, the status of Jews in the early modern Italian duchy, and the trials of professing Jews between 1598 and 1638, the year of the Jews' enclosure in the ghetto.

During the 17th century unprecedented numbers of people left England. They were on their way to new lives in the Caribbean and the North American colonies – but what were their motivations for undertaking such a perilous transatlantic voyage? Using contemporary letters, diaries and court records, Evans tells the personal stories of men and women who left their homeland in search of a fortune, for political and religious reasons or because their desperate poverty meant they had little to lose.