Colonial Period America

Over the last generation, historians have broadened our understanding of colonial America by adopting both a trans-Atlantic and a trans-continental perspective, examining the interplay of Europe, Africa, and the Americas through the flow of goods, people, plants, animals, capital, and ideas. In this Very Short Introduction, Alan Taylor presents an engaging overview of the best of this new scholarship.

Did you know that the first English settlement in the New World was a disaster? Perhaps you have heard the story of Roanoke before. Or maybe even the creation of Jamestown. But have you heard about the Spanish colonies in North America? Or the French and Dutch settlements? Colonial America was diverse, with European settlers from various nations coming to the New World and meeting the Native Americans who already inhabited the land. What were their interactions like? Was there any semblance of peace between all of the groups who called this land their home?

During the brutal winter of 1775-1776, an untested Boston bookseller named Henry Knox commandeered an oxen train hauling 60 tons of cannons and other artillery from Fort Ticonderoga near the Canadian border. He and his men journeyed some 300 miles south and east over frozen, often treacherous terrain to supply George Washington for his attack of British troops occupying Boston. The result was the British surrender of Boston and the first major victory for the Colonial Army.

Jamestown, England's first real foothold in the New World, was fraught with danger - from starvation and disease to violent skirmishes between colonists and the native populations. Mortality rates were impossibly high: six out of seven settlers died within the first few years. How clear these and other perils were made to the 56 young women who left their homes and boarded ships in England in 1621, nearly 15 years after Jamestown's founding, is not known. But we do know who they were. Their ages ranged from 16 to 28, and they were deemed "young and uncorrupt".

From the bestselling author of Leviathan comes this sweeping narrative of one of America’s most historically rich industries. Beginning his epic history in the early 1600s, Eric Jay Dolin traces the dramatic rise and fall of the American fur trade industry, from the first Dutch encounters with the Indians to the rise of the conservation movement in the late nineteenth century.

There has never been a nation like the United States of America. Its impact on the world is unprecedented in all of human history. After two and a half centuries of existence, it is difficult to imagine what the world would be like without it. But how did it come into existence? Who has really done justice to this astonishing story? Innumerable books have been written about the American Revolution, but the definitive treatment of the full story simply does not exist—certainly not in our generation.

This compellingly written history presents a fresh, new view of the events that led from the first foreign salute to American nationhood in 1776 to the last campaign of the Revolution five years later. It paints a magnificent portrait of General George Washington and recounts in riveting detail the events responsible for the birth of our nation.

The setting for this haunting and encyclopedically researched work of history is colonial Massachusetts, where English Puritans first endeavored to "civilize" a "savage" native populace. There, in February 1704, a French and Indian war party descended on the village of Deerfield, abducting a Puritan minister and his children. Although John Williams was eventually released, his daughter horrified the family by staying with her captors and marrying a Mohawk husband.

The Supplement to Volume VII expands the story of the Virginia Colony and discusses the important contributions of its founders, from the arrival of the British at Jamestown in 1607, through the economic expansion, and turbulence of the 18th century. Included are discussions of the investors and explorers who were members of the Virginia Company, such as John Smith, George Percy, and many others. The lives and teachings of Virginia's early religious leaders, and the movement from the government-backed Anglican religion to other Protestant faiths are also discussed.

Over the years, thousands of tales both true and fantastic have been told about the dastardly thievery of pirates. Their rum-drunk exploits and high-seas violence never fail to delight. Now in a brand new series collection, The Best Pirate Stories Ever Told includes many of the very best pirate yarns ever created on history’s most debaucherous scalawags. Anyone who loves a good story full of excitement, adventure, thrills, and laughs will find this collection irresistible.

From the author of The Last Testament comes the true love of Bonnie Prince Charlie, her adventures in America, and her lasting legacy. In the popular genre trail-blazed by Antonia Fraser and Phillippa Gregory, The Pretender's Lady, Alan Gold's meticulously researched novel, accurately opens history's pages on a peerless woman who helped change the course of history and whose legend lives on in Scotland today - Flora MacDonald.

Left unfinished at the time of his death, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin has endured as one of the most well-known and influential autobiographies ever written. From his early years in Boston and Philadelphia to the publication of his Poor Richard's Almanac to the American Revolution and beyond, Franklin's autobiography is a fascinating, personal exploration into the life of America's most interesting founding father.

The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.

Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan. When Captain John Smith was captured by these Indians in 1607, he was brought before Powhatan, who sentenced him to death. Sixteen-year-old Pocahontas convinced her father to spare Captain Smith's life, thus becoming a friend of the settlers and eventually influencing her father to be friendly, too.

For thousands of years, we have set out sailing for all kinds of reasons - for battle, for infinite wealth, for the excitement of exploring the unknown, and for escape from the mundane. We have always had a primal relationship with the sea - even those who have never been to sea remain fascinated by the seafaring life and tales of salty adventure. Now in a brand–new series collection, The Best Sailing Stories Ever Told brings together such diverse authors as Charles Dickens, Jack London, John Masefield, Stephen Crane, Herman Melville, and dozens more.

This fascinating audiobook is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time.

Williamsburg got its start as a fortified site, which was vitally necessary for English settlers to heavily outnumbered by nearby Native Americans, many of which were at times hostile. Known originally as Middle Plantation, the site served as the capital of the colony for much of the 18th century, and it bore witness to seminal events in the history of Revolutionary era America, including the Gunpowder Incident, which nearly coincided with the Battles of Lexington and Concord to the north.

In the first volume in the Penguin History of the United States series, edited by Eric Foner, Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America, from the native inhabitants from millennia past through the decades of Western colonization and conquest and across the entire continent, all the way to the Pacific coast.

In 1528, a mission set out from Spain to colonize Florida. But the expedition went horribly wrong: Delayed by a hurricane, knocked off course by a colossal error of navigation, and ultimately doomed by a disastrous decision to separate the men from their ships, the mission quickly became a desperate journey of survival. Of the 300 men who had embarked on the journey, only four survived - three Spaniards and an African slave.

Adventures in Colonial America is a 13-part series focusing on the history of each of the original 13 American colonies from their founding, through expansion, the American Revolution and ultimately the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.