John McAleer is a historian of the British Empire. His work focuses on the British encounter and engagement with the wider world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, situating the history of empire in its global and maritime contexts.Christer Petley is a historian with interests in Atlantic history, British imperial history, and Caribbean studies. His work focuses on the histories and legacies of slavery in the Americas, mainly on slave societies in the British Caribbean.

• 1. Introduction: The Royal Navy and the British Atlantic by Christer Petley and John McAleer. - 2. The Royal Navy and Caribbean Colonial Society during the Eighteenth Century by Siân Williams. - 3. Ireland and the Royal Navy in the Eighteenth Century by Patrick Walsh. - 4. Another Look at the Navigation Acts and the Coming of the American Revolution by Stephen Conway. - 5. The Royal Navy, the British Atlantic Empire and the Abolition of the Slave Trade by Christer Petley. - 6. At War with the ‘detestable traffic’: The Royal Navy’s Anti-Slavery Cause in the Atlantic Ocean by Mary Wills. - 7. Atlantic Empire, European War, and the Naval Expeditions to South America, 1806–7 by James Davey. - 8. Atlantic Periphery, Asian Gateway: The Royal Navy at the Cape of Good Hope, 1785–1815 by John McAleer. - 9. Love and Death: The Royal Navy in the Atlantic World by Kathleen Wilson