The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675

This is a great book. It is not a book for everyone, however. If you don't know the difference between the Pilgrims and the Puritans, and I don't mean just when they arrived, try something simpler. It is a fascinating read if you already have some knowledge. For example, had I not been familiar with Hudson River geography and history, I'm not sure I would have been able to follow Bailyn's account of New Netherland.Naturally, as in any history, the most interesting stories are those you haven't heard before. For me, that was the information about New Sweden; I even read that section first. What makes Bailyn's book great, however, is his ability to make one see material one already knows a great deal about in new ways. Although he never addressed this question per se, he helped me answer a question that has been on my mind for at least fifteen years, and on which I've done considerable research - why did the Puritans, who arrived in 1630 as staunch Presbyterians, deriding their Separatist/Congregationalist Pilgrim neighbors, declare themselves Congregationalists in 1648 in the Cambridge Platform? (In part, the answer Bailyn helped me surmise is simply that when two or three Puritans gathered together, they had at least four different theological positions. It was hard enough to reconcile them in a single congregation; a presbytery would have been impossible.) The book also caused me to reassess my whole viewpoint on early Connecticut, and I certainly came to appreciate the importance of John Winthrop, Jr. beyond his role there. It is amazing too that Bailyn covers such a wide range of issues while devoting relatively few pages to each.The review in The New York Times Book Review, at least as I recall it, was wrong. While that reviewer praised the Virginia, Maryland and New Sweden/New Netherland portions, the New England portion (about 40% of the book) was dismissed as being only of interest to genealogists. While it is true that the earlier sections were more reflective of the book's subtitle, "The Conflict of Civilizations," the New England section would be of interest to a rather small portion of the genealogical community. (For example, I learned nothing new about my only ancestor discussed in the book, William Vassall.) I doubt if that reviewer has ever seen an on-line genealogy, which frequently contain claims such as that so and so was born in 1585 in the United States. As I have already said, the New England section, like the rest of the book, does a marvelous job of putting information in perspective; something that anyone interested in history needs to do.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Bernard Bailyn writing The Barbarous Years opens a sweeping and authoritative discourse into the peopling of North American between 1600 and 1675. From Jamestown, Virginia to Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who were these individuals who braved three plus months voyages on small, crowded and disease infested ships to arrive at the edge of the American wilderness? You will learn not only who they were but why some succeeded while others were destined to fail.imagesNo one needs tout Bailey's credentials as historian and researcher. He is brilliant. However, what is most remarkable is his ability to keep the subject flowing, fascinating and understandable for the lay reader. Bailyn delivers in brilliant digital display the complexity and challenges of the people responsible for the early settlement of North America.Think of this:Why did the Jamestown fail numerous times?Why did the Catholics establish a foothold in Maryland and the Finns and Swedes in Delaware?Why did The Massachusetts Bay Colony begin to work from day one.? Was it religious fervor or the composition of the settlers themselves?What role did the varied Native American tribes play in the success or failure of early settlement.How did the Pilgrims differ from the Puritans and the aforementioned from the Quakers and the Dutch?Were indentured servants a precursor to slavery?Winthrop, Bradford ,Stuyvesant, Keift, Underhill, King Philips War.The Barbarous Years that marked the original settling of America is a most accurate title for the book. Adventurers, scoundrels, orphans, preachers, doctors, lawyers, Native Americans, politicians, merchants and perhaps most important, the hundreds of unnamed families with children who came to America during the Great Migration of the 1630s , bringing with them the skills and the ethic to permanently settle on the land.The " New World" was British North America during its early settlement but Bailyn clearly identifies the complexity of cultures, trade and geography that would eventually become America. The Barbarous Years is a fabulous foundation for understanding colonial America's formative years. Also by Bernard Bailyn: The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson, and Voyages to the West, which won a Pulitzer.A wonderful different perspective of the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony comes from reading Anya Seton's historical novel Winthrop Women. A second suggestion is Philbrick's book Mayflower. Search Gordonsgoodreads.com for overviews of both.

At first I couldn't understand why no mention was made of the thousands who emigrated to the American States from Ulster. On checking I found that that happened mostly between 1689 and 1764 and therefore outside the time period of this book.

Ótimo livro da história inicial dos EUA

A bit to long and drawn out about the names of the settlers rather than the life style and hardships

Neat, clean book. Delivered promptly.

国内在庫がある洋書ではありましたが、非常に迅速に届きました。ほぼ新本同様で経済的な買い物になりました。また、機会があればよろしくお願いします。