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American Colonies: The settling of North America by Alan Taylor (Penguin, 2003)
Dropping the usual anglocentric description of North America's fate, Taylor conveys the far more startling story of the competing interests – Spanish, French, English, Native, Russian – which over the centuries shaped and reshaped both the continent and its 'suburbs' in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
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The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas: Volume I, North America, Part 1 edited by Bruce G Trigger and Wilcomb E Washburn (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
Comprehensive history which describes how Native Americans have responded to the different European colonial regimes and also examines the development of a pan-Indian identity since the 19th century and looks at how native peoples have fared in Canada compared to the United States.
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Coming Over: Migration and communication between England and New England in the 17th century by David Cressy (Cambridge University Press, 1987)
Discusses the English migration to New England in the 17th century and shows the importance of English connections in the lives of American colonists. It reviews the information available to prospective migrants, the decisions they had to reach and the actions they had to take before they could settle in America.
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Everyday Life in Early America by David Freeman Hawke (HarperPerennial, 1989)
Describes 17th-century American farms, houses, healthcare, manners, crime and punishment, warfare and superstition.
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Frontier House by Simon Shaw (Simon & Schuster, 2002)
Behind-the-scenes look at the television series that sent modern-day Americans back in time to the harsh frontier of 1880s Montana.
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Governing the Tongue: The Politics of speech in early New England by Jane Kamensky (Oxford University Press, 1999)
Examines the special nature and power of speech in Puritan New England, where the twin desires to promote Godly speech and suppress deviant words dominated everyday culture.
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Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle (Reverie Publishing, 1998)
Comprehensive study of the way of life of the early settlers in the New World. The author details the new experiences of the colonists and the daily struggles and problems they faced.
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Indians and English: Face off in early America by Karen Ordahl Kupperman (Cornell, 2000)
Examines English relations with Algonquian-speaking peoples in the first few decades of English settlement on the eastern seaboard of North America. Roanoke, Jamestown and Plymouth are the primary settings for this study, which offers a new framework for conceptualising how Europeans came to know the native people of the Americas.
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A Little Commonwealth: Family life at Plymouth Colony by John Demos (Oxford University Press, 1999)
Groundbreaking study examines the family in the context of the colony founded by the Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower.
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Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas and the heart of a new nation by David A Price (Faber and Faber, April 2005)
Drawing on letters and papers of the period, the author explores the crucial role of Pocahontas, a figure obscured by centuries of legend, and paints indelible portraits both of the aged Indian monarch Powhatan and of Captain Smith, whose resourcefulness saved the colony from starvation and death.
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Many Thousands Gone: The first two centuries of slavery in North America by Ira Berlin (Harvard University Press, 2000)
Traces the evolution of black society from the first arrivals in the early 17th century through to the Revolution. Berlin, a leading historian of southern and African-American life, reintegrates slaves into the history of the American working class and into the tapestry of the nation.
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A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (Longman, 2003)
Radical social history which tells America's story from the point of view, and in the words, of America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor and immigrant labourers.
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Puritans at Play: Leisure and recreation in Colonial New England by Bruce C Daniels (Palgrave Macmillan, 1996)
Daniels reappraises the accuracy of the grim portrait of the Puritan by examining leisure and recreation in colonial and revolutionary New England. Chapters on music, dinner parties, dancing, sex, alcohol, taverns, and sports are presented in a lively style making this book as entertaining as it is illuminating.
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Slavery and Servitude in North America, 1607-1800 by Kenneth Morgan (Keele University Press, 2001)
Exploring how the institutions of indentured servitude and black slavery interacted in 17th- and 18th-century North America, this text examines a broad range of aspects of the two labour systems, including their impact on the economy, racial attitudes, social structures and regional variations within the colonies.
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Strange New Land: Africans in colonial America by Peter H Wood (Oxford University Press, 2003)
An engaging and accessibly written account of the history of slavery and the struggle for freedom before the United States became a nation.
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The Times of their Lives: Life, love and death in Plymouth Colony by Patricia Scott Deetz and James Deetz (Anchor Books, 2001)
Sets out to debunk the longstanding ideas about the life of the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth Colony. The authors describe the arrival of the English settlers, the early years of the settlement, and the myths which have developed since.
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