Crosby, Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, 30th anniversary ed. 2003. An innovative and highly influential account of the environmental impact of Columbus's voyages.

Elliot, J. H. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830. 2006. A masterful account of the differences and similarities between the British and Spanish Empires in the Americas.

Fernández-Armesto, Felip. Columbus. 1992. An excellent biography of Christopher Columbus.

Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations on the Americas Before Columbus, 2d ed. 2011. A highly readable account of the peoples and societies of the Americas before the arrival of Europeans.

Menard, Russell. Sweet Negotiations: Sugar, Slavery, and Plantation Agriculture in Early Barbados. 2006. Explores the intertwined history of sugar plantations and slavery in seventeenth-century Barbados.

Northrup, David, ed. The Atlantic Slave Trade. 1994. Collected essays by leading scholars on many different aspects of the slave trade.

Parker, Charles H. Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age, 1400–1800. 2010. An examination of the rise of global connections in the early modern period, which situates the European experience in relation to the world's other empires and peoples.

Pèrez-Mallaína, Pablo E. Spain's Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleet in the Sixteenth Century. 1998. A description of the recruitment, daily life, and career paths of ordinary sailors and officers in the Spanish fleet.

Pomeranz, Kenneth, and Steven Topik. The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present. 1999. Explores the creation of a world market through the rich and vivid stories of merchants, miners, slaves, and farmers.

Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of Spanish Conquest. 2003. A re-examination of common ideas about why and how the Spanish conquered native civilizations in the New World.

Schmidt, Benjamin. Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570–1670. 2001. Examines changing Dutch attitudes toward the New World, from criticism of the cruelty of the Spanish conquest to eagerness for their own overseas empire.