The main themes of Alan Taylor’s Colonial America
Write a 3-4 page response that addresses the following:
Identify the main themes of Alan Taylor’s Colonial America – A Very Short Introduction.
Based on your reading of Taylor’s work, explain the following conclusion based on your understanding of the work:
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.
Based on your reading of Taylor’s work, identify at least 2 things that you learned that were new to you.
Sample Solution
In breaking free of Anglocentrism, Taylor draws the Indians out from the “wilderness” of history as central protagonists in his narrative. In doing so, the full scale of Indians loss becomes clear. The colonies` success, Taylor argues, was underpinned by what historian John Murrin called “a tragedy of such huge proportions that no one`s imagination can easily encompass it all” (xi). For the Indians, this tragedy can be distilled to three major themes: the decimation of native numbers and culture; European unwillingness to understand or accommodate native ways; and the Indians` own inability to unite in resistance. In devoting a full chapter to the history of the Indians before the Europeans arrived, Taylor debunks the myth of pre-colonial America as “virgin” land.
