Colonial America, Alan Taylor
Colonial America, Alan Taylor
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Colonial America
A Very Short Introduction

Author: Alan Taylor

Narrator: Noah Michael Levine

Unabridged: 3 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/22/2021


Synopsis

In the traditional narrative of American colonial history, early European settlements, as well as native peoples and African slaves, were treated in passing as unfortunate aberrations in a fundamentally upbeat story of Englishmen becoming freer and more prosperous by colonizing an abundant continent of "free land."

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. He shows that American colonization derived from a global expansion of European exploration and commerce that began in the fifteenth century. The English had to share the stage with the French, Spanish, Dutch, and Russians, each of whom created alternative Americas. By comparing the diverse colonies of rival empires, Taylor recovers what was truly distinctive about the English enterprise in North America. He focuses especially on slavery as central to the economy, culture, and political thought of the colonists and restores the importance of native peoples to the colonial story.

About Alan Taylor

Alan Taylor is the author of William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic, which won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for American History and The Internal Enemy, which won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for American History. Taylor is Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at University of Virginia, and lives in Charlottesville.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nicky on April 02, 2018

This was surprisingly not dry. I appreciated how it was broken down by country’s colonies and that the last chapter was on empire, featuring Captain Cook and Hawaii. Overall, a quick and useful read to prepare me for a colonial seminar.......more

Goodreads review by Richard on January 02, 2018

This is another blockbuster in the A Very Short Introduction series. No matter how much you know about colonial America, you’ll learn more from Taylor’s sweep of all the Atlantic horizons. I won’t attempt the thankless task of summarizing a brief summary of the historical verities of the millions of A......more

Goodreads review by Cat on March 19, 2017

Pretty engaging for an introduction, arranged thematically rather than chronologically.......more

Goodreads review by Jacob on January 17, 2025

4 ⭐️ Solid, short piece of literature that ties up a complex history into 150ish pages.......more

Goodreads review by Iris on July 09, 2021

not the most exciting thing to read obviously, but actually rather engrossing with great cultural perspective which should not be too surprising considering it is a part of the lovely short introduction series done by oxford.......more