The book presents the Atlantic coast history as a story of interaction and adaptation among the peoples of the four continents, and discusses the variety of social, political, environmental, and cultural processes set in motion by European exploration and settlement. Beginning with a chapter on the pre-Columbian background of Europe, Africa, and North and South America, this lively narrative traces the history of colonial America to 1763. Covering British, Spanish, French, and Dutch colonization, the book examines colonial development in the North American colonies along the Atlantic coast and in the borderlands, the North American interior, and the Caribbean.

A comprehensive collection of primary documents for students of early American and Atlantic history, Colonial North America and the Atlantic World gives voice to the men and women¿Amerindian, African, and European¿who together forged a new world.These compelling narratives address the major themes of early modern colonialism from the perspective of the people who lived at the time: Spanish priests and English farmers, Indian diplomats and Dutch governors, French explorers and African abolitionists. Evoking the remarkable complexity created by the bridging of the Atlantic Ocean, Colonial North America and the Atlantic World suggests that the challenges of globalization¿and the growing reality of American diversity¿are among the most important legacies of the colonial world.

England's seventeenth-century colonial empire in North America and the Caribbean was created by migration. The quickening pace of this essential migration is captured in the London port register of 1635, the largest extant port register for any single year in the colonial period and unique in its record of migration to America and to the European continent. Alison Games analyzes the 7,500 people who traveled from London in that year, recreating individual careers, exploring colonial societies at a time of emerging viability, and delineating a world sustained and defined by migration. The colonial travelers were bound for the major regions of English settlement -- New England, the Chesapeake, the West Indies, and Bermuda -- and included ministers, governors, soldiers, planters, merchants, and members of some major colonial dynasties -- Winthrops, Saltonstalls, and Eliots. Many of these passengers were indentured servants. Games shows that however much they tried, the travelers from London were unable to recreate England in their overseas outposts. They dwelled in chaotic, precarious, and hybrid societies where New World exigencies overpowered the force of custom. Patterns of repeat and return migration cemented these inchoate colonial outposts into a larger Atlantic community. Together, the migrants' stories offer a new social history of the seventeenth century. For the origins and integration of the English Atlantic world, Games illustrates the primary importance of the first half of the seventeenth century.

Volume 1, The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World carries the interrelated stories of publishing, writing, and reading from the beginning of the colonial period in America up to 1790. Three major themes run through the volume: the persisting connections between the book trade in the Old World and the New, evidenced in modes of intellectual and cultural exchange and the dominance of imported, chiefly English books; the gradual emergence of a competitive book trade in which newspapers were the largest form of production; and the institution of a culture of the Word, organized around an essentially theological understanding of print, authorship, and reading, complemented by other frameworks of meaning that included the culture of republicanism

For courses in Colonial American History A story of interaction and adaptation in the Atlantic world. Colonial America in an Atlantic World presents the story of interaction and adaptation among the peoples of four continents that resulted in the development of the North American region that became the United States. Authors T.H. Breen and Timothy Hall discuss the social, political, environmental, and cultural processes set in motion by European exploration and settlement, and cover the sometimes-overlooked contributions of Native Americans and Africans to Atlantic history. Expanded to include a new, three-chapter section on the American Revolution, the second edition traces Atlantic history right up through the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788. NOTE: This ISBN is for a Pearson Books a la Carte edition: a convenient, three-hole-punched, loose-leaf text. In addition to the flexibility offered by this format, Books a la Carte editions offer students great value, as they cost significantly less than a bound textbook.

"The second edition of Colonial America in an Atlantic World, like the first, responds to a growing interest among teachers and students in a broad and exciting field commonly known as Atlantic History. The approach greatly expands the human and physical boundaries of the subject, which once only looked at white settlers organizing new forms of religion and government. This traditional perspective left too many people out of the story. We have, therefore, tried to present the history of Colonial America in terms of dynamic interaction among the peoples of four continents over several centuries. The world in which these diverse peoples fought, traded, befriended, allied, betrayed one another, made love, married, and bore children was an extraordinarily complex and fluid multiplicity of communities, a vast region in which nations remained in constant flux from fifteenth century through the end of the eighteenth and beyond"--Provided by publisher.

The World of Colonial America: An Atlantic Handbook offers a comprehensive and in-depth survey of cutting-edge research into the communities, cultures, and colonies that comprised colonial America, with a focus on the processes through which communities were created, destroyed, and recreated that were at the heart of the Atlantic experience. With contributions written by leading scholars from a variety of viewpoints, the book explores key topics such as -- The Spanish, French, and Dutch Atlantic empires -- The role of the indigenous people, as imperial allies, trade partners, and opponents of expansion -- Puritanism, Protestantism, Catholicism, and the role of religion in colonization -- The importance of slavery in the development of the colonial economies -- The evolution of core areas, and their relationship to frontier zones -- The emergence of the English imperial state as a hegemonic world power after 1688 -- Regional developments in colonial North America. Bringing together leading scholars in the field to explain the latest research on Colonial America and its place in the Atlantic World, this is an important reference for all advanced students, researchers, and professionals working in the field of early American history or the age of empires.