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.

The World of Colonial America: An Atlantic Handbook offers a comprehensive and in-depth survey of cutting-edge research into the world of Early America and its relationship to the surrounding Atlantic economy.

With an impressive roster of contributors and a wide-ranging selection of original chapters, Colonial America: An Atlantic Handbook will be valuable for scholars, instructors, and students alike. Erik R. Seeman,author of Death in the New World: Cross-Cultural Encounters, 1492-1800 In The World of Colonial America, Ignacio Gallup-Diaz offers scholars and students a remarkably expansive and fresh approach to the Atlantic history of colonial America. With twenty essays written by leading scholars in the field, this rich and engaging collection reframes our understanding by situating the misunderstood and understudied communities, peoples, and cultures of colonial America at the center of the Atlantic World rather than its periphery. Judith Ridner, Associate Professor of History at Mississippi State University With so many leading historians lending their cutting-edge perspectives to a variety of well-organized subjects, this volume will ignite students' passion for the past. It will also, importantly, force readers to re-think their own interpretations of the present. Diverse and critical in its execution, The World of Colonial America is truly a "handbook" for a new generation of scholars. Vaughn Scribner, Assistant Professor of History at Central Arkansas University This is an immensely clarifying and exciting collection, at once surveying the field and looking forward to where it is going, as some practitioners emphasize, vastly. The veterans here cover their subjects with the rigor and precision we have come to expect, and the relative newcomers to the field offer fresh vantage points. Not to be missed! ?David Waldstreicher, CUNY Graduate Center