Alan Taylor

An acclaimed historian challenges the traditional Anglocentric focus of colonial history by examining the various cultural influences from which "America" emerged and documenting the intricate ecological, ethnic, and economic history of the New World, from the Canadian north to the Pacific rim. Reprint.

American Colonies

Colonies -- Land -- Slaves -- Rebels -- Allies -- Loyalties -- Wests -- Oceans -- Shocks -- Republics -- Partisans -- Legacies

A Continental History, 1750-1804

American Revolutions

Drawn from new sources, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian presents a gripping narrative that recreates the events that inspired hundreds of slaves to pressure British admirals into becoming liberators by using their intimate knowledge of the countryside to transform the war.

Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832

The Internal Enemy

Irene Taylor

Features entries by 170 famous diarists at pivotal moments in their lives or in history, in an anthology that includes pieces by such figures as Samuel Pepys, Joe Orton, Anne Frank, Sylvia Plath, and Joseph Stalin. Reprint.

An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists

The Assassin's Cloak

The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian author of William Cooper's Town assesses the early 19th century conflict over the legacy of the American Revolution, citing the agendas of key contributors while offering insight into the war's role in shaping the United States and Canada.

American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies

The Civil War of 1812

In this Very Short Introduction, Alan Taylor presents the current scholarly understanding of colonial America to a broader audience. He focuses on the transatlantic and a transcontinental perspective, examining the interplay of Europe, Africa, and the Americas through the flows of goods, people, plants, animals, capital, and ideas.

A Very Short Introduction

Colonial America

A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850

American Republics

The little town of Whittier lies only 3 miles from Alaska's most-visited tourist destination, Portage Glacier, yet it remains relatively unknown. Mountains four thousand feet tall, glaciers and lakes separate Whittier from the rest of Alaska, and until recently, the only way to reach the small port city was by rail, by sea, or by air (in very small planes only).

The History of Whittier, Alaska and the Portage Valley

The Strangest Town in Alaska

Detailed exploration of the settlement of Maine during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, illuminating the violent and widespread contests along the American frontier that served to define and complete the American Revolution.

The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier, 1760-1820

Liberty Men and Great Proprietors

Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772–1832

The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832

From the Pulitzer Prize- winning historian, a brilliant, absorbing study of Jefferson and his campaign to save Virginia through education. By turns entertaining and tragic, this beautifully crafted history reveals the origins of a great university in the dilemmas of Virginia slavery. Thomas Jefferson shares center stage with his family and fellow planters, all dependent on the labor of enslaved black families. With a declining Virginia yielding to commercially vibrant northern states, Jefferson in 1819 proposed to build a university to educate and improve the sons of the planter elite. They, he hoped, might one day lead a revitalized Virginia free of slavery? and free of the former slaves. Jefferson's campaign to build the university was a contest for the future of a state and the larger nation. Although he prevails, Jefferson's vision of reform through education is hobbled by the actions of genteel students whose defiant sense of honor derived from owning slaves. It is the women of this hypermasculine society? particularly Jefferson's granddaughters?who redeem the best elements of his legacy. 23 illustrations

Thomas Jefferson's Education

A fascinating portrait of country life across the centuries, as told by Britain's greatest diarists The unique beauty of the British countryside has been celebrated down the ages in music, poetry, and art. It has also been celebrated in countless private diaries. This delightful treasury gathers together the very finest--from Rev. Gilbert White’s journal of life at his famous home in Selborne to Beatrix Potter’s holiday diaries from Perthshire. Elsewhere, the thoughts of Dorothy Wordsworth and John Fowles rub shoulders with the words of Queen Victoria, Siegfried Sassoon, and Roger Deakin. Together, these private records, which have been arranged as a diary of the calendar year, paint a rich and surprising portrait of both a landscape and a way of life.

A Year in the British Countryside

The Country Diaries

William Cooper and James Fenimore Cooper, a father and son who embodied the contradictions that divided America in the early years of the Republic, are brought to life in this Pulitzer Prize-winning book. William Cooper rose from humble origins to become a wealthy land speculator and U.S. congressman in what had until lately been the wilderness of upstate New York, but his high-handed style of governing resulted in his fall from power and political disgrace. His son James Fenimore Cooper became one of this country’s first popular novelists with a book, The Pioneers, that tried to come to terms with his father’s failure and imaginatively reclaim the estate he had lost. In William Cooper’s Town, Alan Taylor dramatizes the class between gentility and democracy that was one of the principal consequences of the American Revolution, a struggle that was waged both at the polls and on the pages of our national literature. Taylor shows how Americans resolved their revolution through the creation of new social reforms and new stories that evolved with the expansion of our frontier.

William Cooper's Town

In the traditional narrative of American colonial history, early European settlements, as well as native peoples and African slaves, were treated in passing as unfortunate aberrations in a fundamentally upbeat story of Englishmen becoming freer and more prosperous by colonizing an abundant continent of "free land." Over the last generation, historians have broadened our understanding of colonial America by adopting both a trans-Atlantic and a trans-continental perspective, examining the interplay of Europe, Africa, and the Americas through the flow of goods, people, plants, animals, capital, and ideas. In this Very Short Introduction, Alan Taylor presents an engaging overview of the best of this new scholarship. He shows that American colonization derived from a global expansion of European exploration and commerce that began in the fifteenth century. The English had to share the stage with the French, Spanish, Dutch, and Russians, each of whom created alternative Americas. By comparing the diverse colonies of rival empires, Taylor recovers what was truly distinctive about the English enterprise in North America. He focuses especially on slavery as central to the economy, culture, and political thought of the colonists and restores the importance of native peoples to the colonial story. To adapt to the new land, the colonists needed the expertise, guidance, alliance, and trade of the Indians who dominated the interior. This historical approach emphasizes the ability of the diverse natives to adapt to the newcomers and to compel concessions from them. This Very Short Introduction describes an intermingling of cultures and of microbes, plants, and animals--from different continents that was unparalleled in global history. Oxford's Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

Colonial America: A Very Short Introduction

Helen Kelly

Kate McQuillan

BGE S1-S3 Mathematics and Numeracy: Fourth Level Bridging to National 5

This is book is about my personal experiences living with the exiled Bikinians on the island of Kili and teaching 6th, 7th and 8th grade English and Math in the Republic of the Marshall Islands from 1987 - 1988. It's something I've been thinking about writing for a long time, but my previously wild and wooly work schedule got in the way of doing pretty much everything but working. I read and re-read multiple letters from my wife, listened and re listened to cassette tapes that we sent back and forth that jogged my memory to more accurately depict the good times and well, some of the less than good times. The story takes you from what led me there in the first place, how the Bikinians ended up on Kili (instead of Bikini...) and some of my many, many, many mishaps. According to Wikipedia, between 1946 and 1958, 23 nuclear devices were detonated by the United States at seven test sites located on the reef, inside the atoll, in the air, or underwater. Prior to the testing, the U.S. moved the Bikinian community to a nearby atoll, Rongerik. They were left alone there for a year and when Dr. Leonard Mason, a U.S. anthropologist went to visit them at the request of the Trust Territory High Commissioner, he found they were literally starving. Dr. Mason was able to convince U.S. authorities to move them from Rongerik to Kwajalein Atoll, giving them time to figure out where to move next. After looking at all of their options, the Bikinians moved to Kili in 1948. Kili is a single island and nothing like Bikini. That's the shortest of short stories of how the Bikinians ended up on Kili, and while there is a bit of history woven into the book, this is primarily my story. I hope you enjoy it.

A Year on a Vanishing Island with the Exiled Bikinians in the Marshall Islands

Paradise Lost

“Excellent . . . deserves high praise. Mr. Taylor conveys this sprawling continental history with economy, clarity, and vividness.”—Brendan Simms, Wall Street Journal The American Revolution is often portrayed as a high-minded, orderly event whose capstone, the Constitution, provided the nation its democratic framework. Alan Taylor, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, gives us a different creation story in this magisterial history. The American Revolution builds like a ground fire overspreading Britain’s colonies, fueled by local conditions and resistant to control. Emerging from the continental rivalries of European empires and their native allies, the revolution pivoted on western expansion as well as seaboard resistance to British taxes. When war erupted, Patriot crowds harassed Loyalists and nonpartisans into compliance with their cause. The war exploded in set battles like Saratoga and Yorktown and spread through continuing frontier violence. The discord smoldering within the fragile new nation called forth a movement to concentrate power through a Federal Constitution. Assuming the mantle of “We the People,” the advocates of national power ratified the new frame of government. But it was Jefferson’s expansive “empire of liberty” that carried the revolution forward, propelling white settlement and slavery west, preparing the ground for a new conflagration.

American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804

The changing relationship of Joseph Brant, a young Mohawk, and Samuel Kirkland, the son of a colonial clergyman, from their first meeting at a New England boarding school, is set against the role of the Native American peoples in North America during the American Revolution and the shaping of the postwar borderland between the United States and British Canada. Reprint.

Indians, Settlers and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution

The Divided Ground

Aimed at lay, student, and academic readers alike, this book concerns the imagination and, specifically, imagination in music. It opens with a discussion of the invalidity of the idea of the creative genius and the connected view that ideas originate just in the individual mind. An alternative view of the imaginative process is then presented, that ideas spring from a subconscious dialogue activated by engagement in the world around. Ideas are therefore never just of our own making. This view is supported by evidence from many studies and corresponds with descriptions by artists of their experience of imagining. The third subject is how imaginations can be shared when musicians work with other artists, and the way the constraints imposed by trying to share subconscious imagining result in clearly distinct forms of joint working. The final chapter covers the use of the musical imagination in making meanings from music. The evidence is that music does not communicate meanings directly, and so composers or performers cannot be looked to as authorities on its meaning. Instead, music is commonly heard as analogous to human experience, and listeners who perceive such analogies may then imagine their own meanings from the music.

Musical Invention, Collaboration, and the Making of Meanings

The Imagination of Experiences

A Publishers Weekly Most Anticipated Book of Spring 2021 From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, the powerful story of a fragile nation as it expands across a contested continent. In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny. The newly constituted United States actually emerged as a fragile, internally divided union of states contending still with European empires and other independent republics on the North American continent. Native peoples sought to defend their homelands from the flood of American settlers through strategic alliances with the other continental powers. The system of American slavery grew increasingly powerful and expansive, its vigorous internal trade in Black Americans separating parents and children, husbands and wives. Bitter party divisions pitted elites favoring strong government against those, like Andrew Jackson, espousing a democratic populism for white men. Violence was both routine and organized: the United States invaded Canada, Florida, Texas, and much of Mexico, and forcibly removed most of the Native peoples living east of the Mississippi. At the end of the period the United States, its conquered territory reaching the Pacific, remained internally divided, with sectional animosities over slavery growing more intense. Taylor’s elegant history of this tumultuous period offers indelible miniatures of key characters from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Fuller. It captures the high-stakes political drama as Jackson and Adams, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster contend over slavery, the economy, Indian removal, and national expansion. A ground-level account of American industrialization conveys the everyday lives of factory workers and immigrant families. And the immersive narrative puts us on the streets of Port-au-Prince, Mexico City, Quebec, and the Cherokee capital, New Echota. Absorbing and chilling, American Republics illuminates the continuities between our own social and political divisions and the events of this formative period.

Alan Taylor

About

Books

Join the club