Williamsburg Regional Library

Before the Revolution, America's ancient pasts, Daniel K. Richter

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

mapsillustrationsplates

index present

non fiction

Before the Revolution

bibliography

666616380

Daniel K. Richter

America's ancient pasts

Exploring a vast range of original sources, Before the Revolution spans more than seven centuries and ranges across North America, Europe, and Africa. Richter recovers the lives of a stunning array of peoples<U+2014>Indians, Spaniards, French, Dutch, Africans, English<U+2014>as they struggled with one another and with their own people for control of land and resources. Their struggles occurred in a global context and built upon the remains of what came before. Gradually and unpredictably, distinctive patterns of North American culture took shape on a continent where no one yet imagined there would be nations called the United States, Canada, or Mexico

Prologue : layered pasts -- Progenitors -- Legacies of power from medieval North America -- Legacies of conquest from medieval Europe -- Conquistadores -- Crusades of the Christ-bearers to the Americas -- Crusades of the protestants to new worlds -- Traders -- Native Americans and the power of trade -- Epidemics, war, and the remapping of a continent -- Planters -- Searching for order in new and old England -- Planting patriarchy in New England and Virginia -- Dutch, French, Spanish, and English counterpoints -- Imperialists -- Monarchical power reborn -- Planters besieged -- Revolution, war, and a new transatlantic order -- Atlanteans -- Producing and consuming in an Atlantic empire -- People in motion, enslaved and free -- Contending for a continent -- Gloomy and dark days -- Epilogue : present pasts

adult