The Barbarous Years

The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675

De: Bernard Bailyn

Narrado por: Henry Strozier

Bernard Bailyn gives us a compelling account of the first great transit of people from Britain, Europe, and Africa to British North America, their involvements with each other, and their struggles with the indigenous peoples of the eastern seaboard.

©2012 Bernard Bailyn (P)2013 Recorded Books

brilliant and fascinating

Bailyn has constructed a book that is extremely well organized and loaded with details that flesh out the basic story of America' beginning European settlements. Bailyn uses the available statistical data to show that the settlers of Virginia are a completely different set of Englishmen than those that settled New England. I found that Bailyn's point that the early English saw themselves as natives of the west country, the north, the midlands, etc. rather than as English - until they had define themselves against other peoples. A melting pot indeed. And he points out that the Dutch only started become 'Dutch' when they were conquered by the English.
This book let me look at the early settlers in a nre light, or rather from a different angle. I was sorry to see the book end.

Excellent Listen

Bailyn added details to the past I wasn’t aware of. The reader did a fine job of cadence & as far as I could tell only mispronounced one English word. If you want to understand America’s founding past, this is an excellent read.

Long but excellent and worth it

The storytelling of Bernard Baylin. The excellent narration. the barbarity of the stories make this book worth listening to and reading.

First rate history.

Probably the best book you can read on the earliest English settlers to North America.

A bold historiography supported by a well-modulated Audible performance

Henry Strozier, whose rich voice is a mix of Walt Disney and Walter Cronkite gives a well-modulated performance of Bernard Bailyn’s vastly researched, detailed, and boldly sophisticated historiography of the population and development of America’s colonization (through the English and Dutch Indies Companies) during the seventeenth century. Not the Thanksgiving myth of the peaceful coming together of the English pilgrims and the native Indians, but a barbarous period for survival.

Great for going deep on American history

Not for a casual listen - this book is a comprehensive look at British North America in the first 70 years. It stands at an intermediary level between a high level survey and diving into local histories of early american towns. Great for knowledge hounds. Because it focuses on the political history it is, as was the politics of the time, grim. But it is not simply knee jerk revisionist to fit a simplistic narrative of America being founded in evil - the reasons and causal factors of why history played out like it did are fully explored in detail with no prearranged moral being sought.

Had to stop about half way through.

The book and narration started out balanced. But the narrator clearly became more prejudiced against the colonists. Despite the author’s efforts to balance every horrific, savage action by the indigenous people with a reactionary behavior by the colonists, the narrator’s sneering voice came through and spoiled any balance the author attempted to make.

I could not stomach any more of it. A shame.

Excellent detail and fair

The book was a very well researched and a fair treatment of early American history.

A feast for genealogy/history buffs

Would you consider the audio edition of The Barbarous Years to be better than the print version?

After listening to the audio edition, I purchased a paperback copy because I have been working on family genealogy for over 10 years and the information about religion, birthplace of immigrants and where they chose to settle in British America is priceless to my understanding of several generations of my family.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Finally a clear description of the sometimes subtle differences between Puritans, Pilgrims, Anabaptists, Quakers and other religious groups.

What about Henry Strozier’s performance did you like?

Easy to listen to, appropriate gravitas for the subject matter.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Much too much information for one sitting or even several. I have listened to it twice and will listen to portions again. A treasure trove that helps to explain how we got to where we are in America today.

Any additional comments?

Not a book for the faint hearted. Very long, very detailed but one of my favorites ever.

A Text Book

The book is filled with unnecessary flowery vocabulary. It is on a reading level of a Masters Degree. The author seems to think the bigger the word, the better it is. There is some interesting information if you can persevere through the rest. The narrator can put you to sleep. Some words were mispronounced. That leaves doubt about other words whose pronunciation is unknown to me. Some of these are Indian tribe names. Here is how it comes across to me: The supercilious pomposity demonstrated by this author - narrator team is unsurpassed. They may have impressed someone, but not me.