A New Approach to American History Histories of america before the Revolution

Wall Street Journal Book Reviews: A New Approach to American History Histories of america before the Revolution

The War That Made America by Fred Anderson (2005). Ignore the awful title; the book is a wide-ranging popular summary of the French and Indian War by one of its best historians. Mr. Anderson covers the full sprawl, but he focuses on its role in the conflicts that later resulted in the Revolution.

Ecological Imperialism by Alfred W. Crosby (1986). Written with a welcome dry wit, this classic study suggests that Europe's triumph was based on the often inadvertent refashioning of American ecosystems. The second edition (2004) has a characteristically punchy new introduction by the author.

Mosquito Empires by J.R. McNeill (2010).Brilliant. Ranging freely across the "greater Caribbean"—the region between the Chesapeake Bay and the Guyanas—McNeill makes a riveting case that the primary driver in the colonial conflicts there was not political or economic but microbiological. Worth reading alone for the tale of malaria's role in the American Revolution.

American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund S. Morgan (1975).Morgan, now 95 and still active, targets the great American paradox—that the planters of Virginia developed the nation's ideals of freedom even as they embraced slavery. Outdated in some ways but set down with elegance and power.

The Middle Ground by Richard White (1991). For 150 years Europeans and Indians formed what amounted to a conjoined society around the Great Lakes. Thought violent and unsettled, this mixed place represented, for a while, a different vision of this nation's future. Somewhat academic in tone but fascinating nonetheless.
—Charles C. Mann