Major Problems in American Colonial History

"This new edition takes a more continental and thematic approach. Early chapters look at the earliest impulse to colonization within the future United States by Spanish as well as English promoters, and examine their similarities as well as their differences. They also present new research on Indian responses and strategies for managing the colonists' presence in a variety of settings. Rather than isolating the New England puritan colonies as completely different from other ventures, this volume looks at all the English colonies in a more comparative way, particularly in chapters 4 and 5. This treatment compares the colonies in distinct periods or phases of development, so that both similarities and differences stand out. The approach of looking at phases of development and encompassing regions within them continues in subsequent chapters as colonial enterprise extended into the South and the middle colonies. Comparison of Carolina and Pennsylvania is particularly interesting, as they shared ethnic diversity and radical Protestantism while introducing wholly different labor systems. The comparative and thematic approach continues in chapters on the Great Awakening, the development of the Atlantic economy, the struggle for empire, and the colonies at mid-century. The responses of enslaved Africans and American Indians figure in these chapters as well.