A Companion to Colonial America

A Companion to Colonial America consists of twenty–three original essays by expert historians on the key issues and topics in American colonial history. Each essay surveys the scholarship and prevailing interpretations in these key areas, discussing the differing arguments and assessing their merits. In certain fields, such as politics and religion, the essays cover debates and approaches over the better part of the last century. More recent fields such as migration and gender have a narrower interpretive history, but receive the same comprehensive treatment. Essays on newly emerging fields such as ecology, and a closing summary essay look ahead to the future of Colonial American studies. The contributors are the best in their field and have collaborated to produce an invaluable reference work for American historians, students, and readers of American colonial history.

About the Contributors. Introduction. 1. Pre–Contact: The Evidence from Archaeology. David G. Anderson and Marvin T. Smith. 2. The Origins of Transatlantic Colonization. Carole Shammas. 3. Ecology. John Brooke. 4. Migration and Settlement. Ned Landsman. 5. Empire. Richard R. Johnson. 6. Indian History During the English Colonial Era. James H. Merrell. 7. African–Americans. Philip D. Morgan. 8. Economy. Margaret Newell. 9. Women and Gender. Carol Karlsen. 10. Generation. Holly Brewer. 11. Class. Greg Nobles. 12. Colonial Politics. Alan Tully. 13. Regionalism. Michael Zuckerman. 14. Consumption. Cary Carson. 15. Religion. Marilyn Westerkamp. 16. Secular Culture in Search of an Early American Enlightenment. Darren Staloff. 17. Borderlands. Daniel H. Usner, Jr. 18. Comparisons: The Caribbean. Verene Shepherd and Carleen Payne. 19. Comparisons: New Spain. Robert Ferry. 20. Comparisons: New France. Allan Greer. 21. Comparisons: Atlantic Canada. Peter Pope. 22. Causes of the American Revolutions. Silvia Frey. 23. Postscript: Large Questions in a Very Large Place. Edward Countryman. Index.

Daniel Vickers is Professor of History at the University of California San Diego. He is the author of Farmers and Fisherman: Two Centuries of Work in Essex County, Massachusetts (1994).

"An indispensable survey of a generation of scholarship on early American history. The continent–wide approach is breathtaking – a testimony to the expanding horizons of American historians." Gary B. Nash, University of California Los Angeles "This authoritative and well produced volume provides an overview of the state of play in the ever expanding field of colonial American history. This valuable reference work provides a comprehensive and thought provoking entree into a sophisticated field of historical enquiry." The Journal of the Historical Association