Our Earliest Colonial Settlements - by Charles McLean Andrews (Paperback)

About the Book

A pioneering work first published in 1933 that placed America's colonial experience firmly within the broader history of European colonization. The new foreword by Karen Ordahl Kupperman shows how historians today have returned to Andrews's Atlantic view.

Book Synopsis

First published in 1933, Our Earliest Colonial Settlements describes in clear and engaging prose the origins, development, and transatlantic nature of the seventeenth-century English colonies in Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maryland. Far ahead of his time in arguing that America's colonial experience could only be understood within the broader history of European colonization, Charles M. Andrews anticipated much of the current scholarship on American colonial history and its place in the Atlantic World. For this edition, Karen Ordahl Kupperman provides a new foreword that places this pioneering work in the context of past and current scholarship, finding that historians today have returned to Andrews' comprehensive approach. New materials and new emphases have come to light since this pioneering work was first published but, Kupperman writes, "his priorities and interpretations are still thought-provoking."More than seven decades on, this concise and elegant comparative study of America's first English colonies offers a fascinating and still-relevant perspective on the founding of the United States.

Review Quotes

Andrews writes with such fullness of knowledge, such an easy command of his material, and such vigorous presentation of his ideas that his book will be keenly interesting for all who care about our early history.

About the Author

Karen Kupperman is Silver Professor of History at New York University. Her books include The Jamestown Project and Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America