Texts:

There are three to be purchased for the course this semester. Each has a specific role in the course:

Reich, Jerome R., Colonial America 5^th Edition
Upper Saddle Ridge, New Jersey, Prentice Hall Publishers, 2001.

Reich is a short but remarkably thorough survey of Colonial American History. I rather like it because it devotes so much space to social and intellectual history.

Kupperman, Karen, Major Problems in American Colonial History 2^nd Edition
Boston, Houghton-Mifflin Company, 2000

I don't think this book is as successful as many others in the Major Problems series. The biggest flaw is organization... the "problems" are diffuse and not very coherent. The redeeming virtue is a large number of primary source materials, many of which are not available elsewhere.

Hawke, David Freeman, Everyday Life in Early America
New York: Harper & Row, 1988

Don't be fooled into thinking that Reich and Hawke are clones of each other because some of the chapter titles are quite similar. Hawke's purpose is quite different, and he will try to reveal, in Johan Huizinga's phrase..."the true character of the spirit of the age...in its mode of regarding and expressing commonplace things than in the high manifestations of philosophy..." I like the book because it is a superior example of the proper creation of generalizations and impressions. To a remarkable extent, Hawke is able to show you daily life in America from the perspective of the man (and woman) on the street.

The Course in General.
 

There will be two principal phases to this course. We will begin with a rapid and general survey of the principal issues, events, and characters in the Colonial American experience. Here, our focus will be primarily on the first ten chapters of the Reich text and selected readings from the early chapters in Kupperman. I would like to have this phase substantively complete by spring break at the latest.

The second phase of the course will return to look at selected topics in the History of Colonial America. We'll use all three books for this part of the course. The class as a whole will investigate a number of topics and "problems" drawn from Hawke, Reich, and Kupperman. Each individual member of the class will investigate a problem of his/her choice and present the results of that investigation in the form of a paper in hard copy and electronic (web site) form, and report the results of the investigation to the rest of the class. More about this later.
 

Evaluation:
 

I'll be evaluating you on 4 things:

1. Midterm Examination (take-home) 25% of final grade

2. Private Investigation and class report 35% of final grade

3. Final Examination (either take-home or in class... essay either way) 30% of final grade

4. Participation and "faithfulness" 10% of final grade

I do not take attendance. However, you are responsible for any instructions which I may give in class. I also reserve the right to give snap quizzes if I'm feeling cranky, and average the results into #4, above.
 

Website
 

There is a website for this course located at http://HIST34002.homestead.com/index.html

At the moment, there is nothing much there except the course title. Shortly I will post the syllabus on it, and then, on very frequent basis, updates, reading assignments, and everything else which I'm currently distributing by paper. Student projects will be either be posted on this website or linked to it.
 
 
 

To begin with:
 

Taking a look at the Reich table of contents, you'll quickly note that the book falls into three divisions. The first five chapters treat the European roots of the American Experience, and the cultural landscape into which the Europeans came. The second five chapters focus on the political-economic development of English North America. The remainder of the book makes a transition from a primarily chronological focus to a primarily topical one. I'll provide a weekly calendar of readings beginning on Friday. In the meantime, for Friday, January 26^th 's class I'd like to have you...

READ

in Reich, Chapters 1- 2, pp. 1-2
in Kupperman, Chapter 2, "Native American Responses to Europeans: Romantic Versus Rationalistic Interpretations. Pp. 39-49

GET yourself an e-mail and Internet account from Information Technology, if you haven't done so before.
 

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