Books

Unless otherwise indicated, all OI books are distributed by The University of North Carolina Press.

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Reviews

This volume’s creative vision of our colonial origins places Jamestown’s establishment in 1607 in its rich, often surprising context. . . . It sets the standard for reflecting, four hundred years later, on the human diversity and contingency of what turned out, after all, to have been a foundational moment in a history of a nation no less diverse or complex.

Exploring far-flung places linked by trade, migration, and imagination, this extraordinary collection investigates the origins not only of Virginia but also of our global community today.

These essays righfully foreground actors often forgotten in our patriotic celebrations: Native American power brokers; Saharan, Benin, and Kongolese traders and rulers; Caribbean planters; and Spanish, Portuguese, and French lay and clerical imperial agents. They ought to be consdiered as central to the history of early colonial Virginia as Sir Walter Ralegh and Captain John Smith.

Recounting a ‘world in formation,’ this volume places early English colonization in the broadest context. Beautifully produced, the book will maintain its place on many a bookshelf long after the four hundredth anniversary of Jamestown is a distant memory.

[A] very fine edited collection. . . . A rewarding read and an important reminder that the first permanent English settlement in North America survived.

Studded with sparkling essays, some of which should become required reading.

This collection succeeds in dramatically broadening our perspective on the global context of early American history. . . . A magnificent array of the best scholars working in the field today, and these essays will only contribute to their status.

An impressive volume. . . . Deserve[s] high praise.

A Herculean task of integration. . . . [Mancall] carries off this task with sophistication and grace.

The essays . . . do a fine job of explicating parts of the economic, political, scientific, and ideological milieu out of which the Virginia experiment emerged.

With contributions from many of the most preeminent historians in the field, this work belongs in every college/university library.

Superb.