Daniel Vickers is Professor of History at the University of California San Diego. He is the author of Farmers and Fisherman: Two Centuries of Work in Essex County, Massachusetts (1994).

"An indispensable survey of a generation of scholarship on early American history. The continent-wide approach is breathtaking – a testimony to the expanding horizons of American historians." Gary B. Nash, University of California Los Angeles "This authoritative and well produced volume provides an overview of the state of play in the ever expanding field of colonial American history. This valuable reference work provides a comprehensive and thought provoking entree into a sophisticated field of historical enquiry." The Journal of the Historical Association

• About the Contributors viiIntroduction x1 Pre-Contact: The Evidence from Archaeology 1David G. Anderson and Marvin T. Smith2 The Origins of Transatlantic Colonization 25Carole Shammas3 Ecology 44John Brooke4 Migration and Settlement 76Ned Landsman5 Empire 99Richard R. Johnson6 Indian History During the English Colonial Era 118James H. Merrell7 African Americans 138Philip D. Morgan8 Economy 172Margaret Newell9 Women and Gender 194Carol Karlsen10 Children and Parents 236Holly Brewer11 Class 259Greg Nobles12 Colonial Politics 288Alan Tully13 Regionalism 311Michael Zuckerman14 Consumption 334Cary Carson15 Religion 366Marilyn Westerkamp16 Secular Culture in Search of an Early American Enlightenment 389Darren Staloff17 Borderlands 408Daniel H. Usner, Jr.18 Comparisons: The Caribbean 425Verene Shepherd and Carleen Payne19 Comparisons: New Spain 451Robert Ferry20 Comparisons: New France 469Allan Greer21 Comparisons: Atlantic Canada 489Peter Pope22 Causes of the American Revolutions 508Sylvia Frey23 Postscript: Large Questions in a Very Large Place 530Edward CountrymanIndex 541