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While in London in 1705, Robert Beverley wrote and published The History and Present State of Virginia, one of the earliest printed English-language histories about North America by an author born there. Like his brother-in-law William Byrd II, Beverley was a scion of Virginia's planter elite, personally ambitious and at odds with royal governors in the colony. As a native-born American--most famously claiming "I am an Indian--he provided English readers with the first thoroughgoing account of the province's past, natural history, Indians, and current politics and society. In this new edition, Susan Scott Parrish situates Beverley and his History in the context of the metropolitan-provincial political and cultural issues of his day and explores the many contradictions embedded in his narrative. Parrish's introduction and the accompanying annotation, along with a fresh transcription of the 1705 publication and a more comprehensive comparison of emendations in the 1722 edition, will open Beverley's History to new, twenty-first-century readings by students of transatlantic history, colonialism, natural science, literature, and ethnohistory.
Explore the history of immigration to the United States through the eyes of two of its earliest familiesthe Nuckollses and the Lymans. Charles R. Nuckolls Jr. examines the religious strife, war, and other problems that forced his descendants and others to flee to the New World. His examination of his familys role in historic events provides a framework for understanding the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the beginnings of government in the United States. The Roses presents the history of the Lyman family in New England and then follows the Nuckolls family of Virginia as they head west. It will take all of their strength and courage to survive financial panics, wars, and social upheavals. An examination of the roles the Lymans and Nuckollses played in the founding of various colonies, the American Revolution, and other important events helps convey the important position immigrants held in the development of America. Take a detailed look at how immigrants contributed to the rise of America and how they survived difficult times in The Roses: The Nuckolls Family, the Lyman Family, and One Hundred Fifty Immigrants Who Helped Shape America.
Reading the Roots is an unprecedented anthology of outstanding early writings about American nature--a rich, influential, yet critically underappreciated body of work. Rather than begin with Henry David Thoreau, who is often identified as the progenitor of American nature writing, editor Michael P. Branch instead surveys the long tradition that prefigures and anticipates Thoreau and his literary descendants. The selections in Reading the Roots describe a diversity of landscapes, wildlife, and natural phenomena, and their authors represent many different nationalities, cultural affiliations, religious views, and ideological perspectives. The writings gathered here also range widely in terms o...
A "Topping People" is the first comprehensive study of the political, economic, and social elite of colonial Virginia. Evans studies twenty-one leading families from their rise to power in the late 1600s to their downfall over one hundred years later. These families represented the upper echelons of power, serving in the upper and lower houses of the General Assembly, often as speaker of the House of Burgesses. Their names—Randolph, Robinson, Byrd, Carter, Corbin, Custis, Nelson, and Page, to note but a few—are still familiar in the Old Dominion some three hundred years later. Their decline was due to a variety of factors—economic, social, and demographic. The third generations showed ...