AMERICAN COLONIES starts with the earliest years of human colonization of the American continent and environs with the Siberian migrations across the Bering Strait 15,000 years ago. It ends in around 1800 when the rough outline of the contemporary North America could be perceived.

Dropping the usual Anglocentric description of North America's fate, Taylor brilliantly conveys the far more vivid and startling story of the competing interests--Spanish, French, English, Native, Russian--that over the centuries shaped and reshaped both the continent and its 'suburbs' in the Caribbean and the Pacific. It is one of the greatest of all human stories.

Alan Taylor is the author of "William Cooper's Town", which won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize in American History.

About the Author
Alan Taylor is Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. His last book was WILLIAM COOPER'S TOWN which won both the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Bancroft Prize in American History.

Reviews
"Formidable...provokes us to contemplate the ways in which residents of North America have dealt with diversity." -The New York Times Book Review

"A superb overview of colonial America." -Christian Science Monitor

"Compelling, readable, and fresh, American Colonies is perhaps the most brilliant piece of synthesis in recent American historical writing." -Phillip J. Deloria, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg Collegiate Professor of American Culture and History at the University of Michigan

"Even the serious student of history will find a great deal of previously obscure information. The book offers a balanced understanding of the diverse peoples and forces that converged on this continent and influenced the course of American history." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Crammed full of fascinating material uncovered by historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists in the past half-century." -Newsday



Book Information
ISBN 9780142002100
Author Alan Taylor
Format Paperback
Page Count 544
Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 540g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 156mm * 32mm