Author | Alan Taylor |
---|---|
Language | English |
Publisher | Viking Press |
Publication date | November 12, 2001 |
Pages | 526 |
American Colonies: The Settling of North America is a book about early American history by Alan Taylor, first published on November 12, 2001, by Viking Press. [1] It is the first volume of the Penguin History of the United States. [2]
The book is divided into three major parts: "Encounters", "Colonies", and "Empires". [2] These sections discuss, respectively, the colonial encounter between European settlers and the Indigenous peoples in North America, including through colonial projects such as New Spain; colonies such as the New England Colonies and the province of Carolina; and imperial domains including New France and British America. [2] American Colonies rejects American exceptionalism, focusing on slavery and the displacement and depopulation of Indigenous peoples. [3] It employs the methods of social history and environmental history, among other approaches. [4]
Andrew Cayton describes the book as a "balanced synthesis" of a trend in historical scholarship emphasizing the pluralism and diversity of colonial-era North America, a place in which Indigenous people of the Americas and enslaved Africans, as well as Europeans, created novel social arrangements. [5] A starred review in Publishers Weekly likewise noted that American Colonies "challenges traditional Anglocentric interpretations of colonial history by focusing more evenly on the myriad influences on North America's development". [6] Osita Nwanevu, in a retrospective review of American Colonies along with Taylor's later works American Revolutions and American Republics, noted that American Colonies is organized in a more conventional, chronological manner than the other two, which focus on themes. [7]
Author | Alan Taylor |
---|---|
Language | English |
Publisher | Viking Press |
Publication date | November 12, 2001 |
Pages | 526 |
American Colonies: The Settling of North America is a book about early American history by Alan Taylor, first published on November 12, 2001, by Viking Press. [1] It is the first volume of the Penguin History of the United States. [2]
The book is divided into three major parts: "Encounters", "Colonies", and "Empires". [2] These sections discuss, respectively, the colonial encounter between European settlers and the Indigenous peoples in North America, including through colonial projects such as New Spain; colonies such as the New England Colonies and the province of Carolina; and imperial domains including New France and British America. [2] American Colonies rejects American exceptionalism, focusing on slavery and the displacement and depopulation of Indigenous peoples. [3] It employs the methods of social history and environmental history, among other approaches. [4]
Andrew Cayton describes the book as a "balanced synthesis" of a trend in historical scholarship emphasizing the pluralism and diversity of colonial-era North America, a place in which Indigenous people of the Americas and enslaved Africans, as well as Europeans, created novel social arrangements. [5] A starred review in Publishers Weekly likewise noted that American Colonies "challenges traditional Anglocentric interpretations of colonial history by focusing more evenly on the myriad influences on North America's development". [6] Osita Nwanevu, in a retrospective review of American Colonies along with Taylor's later works American Revolutions and American Republics, noted that American Colonies is organized in a more conventional, chronological manner than the other two, which focus on themes. [7]