Alexander
Hamilton, American
by Richard Brookhiser
(Paperback -- April )
American
Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World
by David E. Stannard
(Paperback -- November 1993)
The
Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787 (Published for the Omohundro
Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia)
by Gordon S. Wood
(Paperback -- April )
John Adams
by David McCullough
Listed under John Adams
Franklin: The Essential Founding Father
by James Srodes
Listed under Benjamin Franklin
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
by Benjamin Franklin, Leonard W. Labaree (Editor)
Listed under Benjamin Franklin
Miracle
at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September
1787
by Catherine Drinker Bowen
(Paperback -- September 1986)
Everyday
Life in Early America
by David Freeman Hawke
(Paperback -- January 1989)
Washington:
The Indispensable Man
by James Thomas Flexner
(Paperback -- February )
A
Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America
by Ivor Noel Hume, Ivor Noel Hume
(Paperback -- June )
Into
the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier
by James H. Merrell
Although the American West was ultimately won by killing nearly every
Indian who got in the way, the initial contacts between native and Euro-American
cultures were for the most part peaceful, defined by the social and geopolitical
norms set by the land's original inhabitants. Into the American Woods examines
how semiprofessional negotiators defined a "middle ground" in frontier
Pennsylvania where schisms between Anglos and native Americans were temporarily
appeased for mutual economic and political gain.
English colonial administrators, seeking to purchase land, establish
trade, and avert conflict, became dependent on opportunists at the colony's
edge, such as German entrepreneur Conrad Weiser, or trader George Groghan,
to negotiate with the Delaware, Shawnee, Iroquois, and other regional tribes
and bands. Uninterested in learning the ways of new arrivals, the native
peoples sent sons of mixed European and Indian heritage or Christian converts
to negotiate on their behalf. By trading wampum, using sign language, and
scribbling pictographs, these go-betweens developed ambiguously effective
means of bridging cultural divides. Negotiators, however, did not fully
trust each other's intentions and maintained the prejudices of their own
cultures. The French-Indian Wars lessened the effectiveness of councils
or other forms of negotiation and tensions between Anglo and Native American
civilizations intensified, culminating in the infamous "Paxton Boys" massacre
of 1763. Each stage of Merrell's lively, extremely well-researched analysis
is filled with colorful "woods lore"--anecdotes often comic in nature,
focusing on the rampant alcoholism and bawdiness of frontier life--which
illustrate the personalities of key negotiators, as well as the strategies
and conditions by which White and Native America conversed in the early
18th century, an era when the wampum belt carried more power on the frontier
than the flintlock. --John Anderson - Amazon.com
Paperback from W.W. Norton & Company
|
| |
Red,
White, and Black: The Peoples of Early North America (4th Edition)
by Gary B. Nash
(Paperback -- July 14, )
The
Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America
by John Demos
(Paperback -- April )
Crucible
of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America,
1754-1766 (Vintage)
by Fred Anderson
(Paperback -- January 23, )
Princes
of Ireland, Planters of Maryland: A Carroll Saga, 1500-1782
by Ronald Hoffman
(Paperback -- February )
Light
and the Glory
by Peter Marshall, David Manuel
(Paperback -- November 1980)
Sexual
Revolution in Early America (Gender Relations in the American Experience)
by Richard Godbeer
(Hardcover -- May )
Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America
by Ira Berlin
Listed under Slavery
Changes in the Land - Indians Colonists and the Ecology of New England
by William Cronon
(Paperback -- June 1984)
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson and the American
Revolution
by John E. Ferling
(Hardcover -- July )
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
| The Colonial Period on DVD |
|
|
|
|
