Showing results by author "Peter C. Mancall" in All Categories

The years between 1760 and 1800 rocked the Western world. These were the years when colonists on the eastern fringes of a continent converted the ideals of Enlightenment thought first into action, then into an actual form of government. Now you can learn why this happened and how the colonists did it-in a series of 48 insightful lectures from an award-winning teacher and author. Professor Mancall brings to life not only the famous but also the little-remembered colonists who were caught up in the debates over rights and power, liberties and empire. It is a story of immense importance and rich discoveries. And because he presents original source materials, including examples of how events were reported and interpreted, you'll more readily grasp the evolution of ideas, the competing pressures, and the misunderstandings-not only in the time leading up to the Revolution, and during the years it was being fought, but afterwards, as well. That's when the victorious colonists came to learn that in achieving freedom from Great Britain, they had simply traded one set of problems for another. They still had to cope with the extraordinarily difficult task of crafting a workable government-one that could support their ideals of how citizens and government should relate to each other-and achieving respect and success among other nations.

In Nature and Culture in the Early Modern Atlantic, historian Peter C. Mancall reveals how Europeans and Native Americans thought about a natural world undergoing rapid change in the century following the historic voyages of Christopher Columbus. Through innovative use of oral history and folklore maintained for centuries by Native Americans as well as original use of manuscript atlases, paintings that depict European representations of nature, and texts that circulated across the ocean, he reveals how the encounter between the old world and the new changed the fate of millions.

This compelling counter-narrative to the familiar story of the Puritans combines a rich understanding of the period with a close reading of early texts to bring the contentious Morton to life. This volume sheds new light on the tumultuous formative decades of the American experience.

The English explorer Henry Hudson devoted his life to the search for a water route through America, becoming the first European to navigate the Hudson River in the process. In Fatal Journey, acclaimed historian and biographer Peter C. Mancall narrates Hudsons final expedition.