[BS0]≡ PDF The Barbarous Years The Peopling of British North America The Conflict of Civilizations 16001675 Bernard Bailyn 9780394515700 Books

The Barbarous Years The Peopling of British North America The Conflict of Civilizations 16001675 Bernard Bailyn 9780394515700 Books

Download As PDF : The Barbarous Years The Peopling of British North America The Conflict of Civilizations 16001675 Bernard Bailyn 9780394515700 Books

The Barbarous Years The Peopling of British North America The Conflict of Civilizations 16001675 Bernard Bailyn 9780394515700 Books

One thing is for certain, in this highly detailed work by the author, there is no attempt to sugarcoat the European experience in emigrating to America in the 17th century. He examines Virginia, the Chesapeake area, New York, and New England. In the initial stages merely surviving was an accomplishment. Most of the early settlers were clueless about overcoming the harsh conditions that they found, not to mention the savagery that the natives unleashed upon them without warning. A large supply of the weak and vulnerable facilitated this peopling of America, despite the dreadful conditions.

In addition, as the author shows in great detail, are the conflicts among the settlers. America was settled during a time of great political and religious clashes in England. Most of the settlers were Protestants, but held widely differing, contentious views about religious practice. Much of the governance of the colonies was autocratic, inept, and harsh. A good many of the settlers were indentured by contract for years and thereby were practically slaves, in contrast to the well connected who were granted huge estates. But even then, the author points out that the living standards for even the rich were terrible by European standards.

The book is definitely more sociology than historical. One learns about the origins of the settlers across America and the implications for the possibility of robust communities. The author definitely does not hold back on naming thousands of settlers across the colonies; it is difficult to slog through all of that. The book does seem a little scattershot in its organization and subject matter.


Tags : The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 [Bernard Bailyn] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>Bernard Bailyn gives us a compelling account of the first great transit of people from Britain, Europe,Bernard Bailyn,The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675,Knopf,0394515706,Canada;History;To 1763 (New France),Immigrants;North America;History;17th century.,United States;History;Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.,17th century,Canada,Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775,History,History - U.S.,History Modern 17th Century,History North America,History United States Colonial Period (1600-1775),History: American,Immigrants,North America,North America - History,North American,To 1763 (New France),U.S. History - Colonial Period (1607-1775),United States,United States - Colonial Period

The Barbarous Years The Peopling of British North America The Conflict of Civilizations 16001675 Bernard Bailyn 9780394515700 Books Reviews

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.
This goes into much more detail than Fischer's Albion's Seed, which had been one of my favorites. Also paints a far less flattering picture of the early leaders and settlers - not the noble people one learns about in school but a rather scurvy lot. The Pilgrims, for example, were far outnumbered by adventurers, unfortunates, and random outcasts of society. The settlements of Virginia and Maryland seemed to have been not much more than an ongoing internecine fight. I was not even aware of the Scandinavian settlements along the Delaware, or their eventual takeover by the Dutch - before the Dutch were taken over by the English. The discussion of the whole phenomenon if the Puritan movement, both in England and in the New World, is superb.
I'd give this a five star rating, except that I can't honestly say I loved the book. But I sure learned a lot from reading it, and learning is one of the joys of my life now. I have ancestors from this time period in most of the original 13 colonies, but I've not read a book that pulled the time period together so well before. Now I understand more about why the Indian uprisings in one colony did or did not spread to others. I think I have a better grasp of how my ancestors probably lived, and I have great admiration for them.

This is probably a book anyone with an interest in the first 50-60 years of the British colonies in North America should read. It won't be painful, I promise!
Here is a book by a noted and reliable historian on the clash of civilizations between the Europeans and the Native Americans. It pulls no punches and objectively relates and analyzes the situation as it was explaning the clash of values and belief systems of the two cultures. What is fascinating is that we would now not feel at home with either of these cultures.
The cruelty on all sides makes one wonder about the nature of man.
All in all, with all its problems and divisions the United States has become quite a country in spite of its violent roots.
Somehow, out of all of the chaos and destruction Madison, Washington, Jefforson, Hamilton and Adams came forward to create a civilized country.
Worth reading if you are patriotic American who understands that all is not black and white.
One thing is for certain, in this highly detailed work by the author, there is no attempt to sugarcoat the European experience in emigrating to America in the 17th century. He examines Virginia, the Chesapeake area, New York, and New England. In the initial stages merely surviving was an accomplishment. Most of the early settlers were clueless about overcoming the harsh conditions that they found, not to mention the savagery that the natives unleashed upon them without warning. A large supply of the weak and vulnerable facilitated this peopling of America, despite the dreadful conditions.

In addition, as the author shows in great detail, are the conflicts among the settlers. America was settled during a time of great political and religious clashes in England. Most of the settlers were Protestants, but held widely differing, contentious views about religious practice. Much of the governance of the colonies was autocratic, inept, and harsh. A good many of the settlers were indentured by contract for years and thereby were practically slaves, in contrast to the well connected who were granted huge estates. But even then, the author points out that the living standards for even the rich were terrible by European standards.

The book is definitely more sociology than historical. One learns about the origins of the settlers across America and the implications for the possibility of robust communities. The author definitely does not hold back on naming thousands of settlers across the colonies; it is difficult to slog through all of that. The book does seem a little scattershot in its organization and subject matter.