Representative Americans: Colonists - Softcover

Risjord, Norman K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0669028312 ISBN 13: 9780669028317

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (Academic), 1982

Synopsis

This updated volume of Representative Americans highlights three generations of colonial Americans -- men and women who founded, shaped, and coined traditions of this country. This is a glimpse into a time of empire and frontier, religion and science. The breadth of this experience is represented in the book's three sections. Pathmarkers of Empire are represented in the first section. Captain John Smith and Nathaniel Bacon, though living half a century apart, were frontier soldiers shaping relations between Native and European cultures. William Bradford and William Penn came to America, also half a century apart, hoping to found a community of the righteous. In the book's second section, Swords of Empire, the imperial, triangular contest among Britain, France, and Spain for supremacy in the New World is explored. In the vanguard of the empire were the fortune hunters, Risjord writes. Among these Caesars of the Forest were Pierre Esprit Radisson and his merchant brother-in-law Medard Chouart who traversed the wilds of Canada in search of the elusive Northwest Passage. The book's final section, Bridges of Empire, presents, among others, Cotton Mather and James Logan, who stood poised between an older order of religious humility and a newer one of political will which would later blossom into national identity.

About this title

About the Author

Norman K. Risjord is emeritus professor of history at the University of WisconsinMadison where he taught for over three decades. He is the author of "Chesapeake Politics, 1781-1800" and "Jefferson's America, 1760-1815". He is general editor of the "American Profiles" series for Madison House.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (Academic)
• Publication date: 1982
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0669028312
• ISBN 13: 9780669028317
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 253