America's Nation-Time - 1607-1789 (Paperback)

A history of those men and women—English, European, and African—who transformed America from a geographical expression into a new nation.

The study of American history has become so complex in recent years that readers now often face a choice between a broad survey simplified to the point of distortion and a daunting array of specialized studies. The need remains for a lucid overview of the principal events of each period of the nation's history, together with a balanced interpretation of their significance. This book provides such an overview and interpretation for the colonial period.

America's Nation-Time opens with the landings on the North American coast and ends with the election of George Washington. Mr. Labaree describes the early settlements and the social structure of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America. He analyzes government and politics, economic development, and the changing fabric of religion and culture. In the last section of the book, he discusses the critical events leading toward the colonists' break with Britain, the course of the Revolution, and the prospects for the new nation at the war's close. In a clear narrative style, America's Nation-Time provides a concise introduction to the people and events of the country's first two-hundred years.