Colonial America: Essays in Politics and Social Development

This is a high level treatment of the subject and probably only for specialists in the area or serious readers. It presumes a lot of previous knowledge, but if you're interested, don't let that stop you as you can pick up a lot of that on your way through this book. The book includes essays by established top scholars in the area, as well as promising younger scholars whose contributions are already starting to be recognized. I was most interested in the chapters on the Choctaw and Iroquois experience in early colonial America. The Choctaw article, for example, details how much the native American population in the Carolinas had declined as a result of war and disease, especially smallpox, which wiped out whole villages. The descriptions are graphic, one referred to an epidemic that occurred around 1700 that killed the Indians so quickly that the forests were littered with the dead and the stench of decay was everywhere, and the vultures and carrion feeders were having a field day. So it's not for the weak hearted perhaps, either. Other interesting things I picked up were how the Iroquois dealt with the death of a loved one. They were allowed a shorter grieving period in which they were excused from normal tribal duties, and could isolate themselves from the tribe in the sense of having little verbal contact with others in order to deal privately with the grief, and a longer period of up to a year during which it was recognized they might still need further time to fully work through the grief and return to their normal place in the tribe. In other words, there was formal recognition of, and a custom to deal with, the death of loved ones that allowed significant down time before returning to their normal role and duties in the tribe. Contrast that with the normal workaday environment in the U.S. in which many employees are granted a few days bereavement leave and are expected to return to work after that. These are just two of the interesting things I learned from this book. The other articles on social and political organization, early religion, and so on, were interesting too, but I was most interested in the articles on early contact with native Americans, and how their way of life differed from and was affected by, the settlers. For that this book served very well.

This is an excellent book for anyone interestested in early North American history.

Colonial America : Essays in Politics and Social Development is a collection of essays concerning the British colonies in North America. The essays present the latest research from colonial historians working on a broad range of topics, from Cornelia Hughes Dayton's examination of abortion and gender roles in colonial Connecticut to Alfred Crosby's analysis of the impact of introduced Europan diseases on Native Americans.This is not an easy read. The articles are dense, heavily footnoted, and packed with very specific information. Most of the authors assume that the reader comes to this volume already knowing a good deal about colonial history. For example, an article on the Bayard Treason Trial in New York takes it for granted that we already know about the Dutch history of New York, Leisler's rebellion, and the colonial court system.MAny of the articles are brilliant, and this volume is a great example of the very latest historical scholarship in the field. But these essays are by historians writing for other historians. This is not an introduction to colonial history for the general reading public.