Table of Contents

About the Contributors vii

Introduction x

1 Pre-Contact: The Evidence from Archaeology 1
David G. Anderson and Marvin T. Smith

2 The Origins of Transatlantic Colonization 25
Carole Shammas

3 Ecology 44
John Brooke

4 Migration and Settlement 76
Ned Landsman

5 Empire 99
Richard R. Johnson

6 Indian History During the English Colonial Era 118
James H. Merrell

7 African Americans 138
Philip D. Morgan

8 Economy 172
Margaret Newell

9 Women and Gender 194
Carol Karlsen

10 Children and Parents 236
Holly Brewer

11 Class 259
Greg Nobles

12 Colonial Politics 288
Alan Tully

13 Regionalism 311
Michael Zuckerman

14 Consumption 334
Cary Carson

15 Religion 366
Marilyn Westerkamp

16 Secular Culture in Search of an Early American Enlightenment 389
Darren Staloff

17 Borderlands 408
Daniel H. Usner, Jr.

18 Comparisons: The Caribbean 425
Verene Shepherd and Carleen Payne

19 Comparisons: New Spain 451
Robert Ferry

20 Comparisons: New France 469
Allan Greer

21 Comparisons: Atlantic Canada 489
Peter Pope

22 Causes of the American Revolutions 508
Sylvia Frey

23 Postscript: Large Questions in a Very Large Place 530
Edward Countryman

Index 541

About the Author

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).

Reviews

"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