In potent, graceful prose that sensitively unearths the social complexity and tangled history of colonial relations, Silver presents an astonishingly vivid picture of 18th-century America. 13 illustrations; 2 maps. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

The mid-Atlantic colonies of 18th-century America were home to a remarkable diversity of immigrants Germans, Quakers, Moravians, Englishmen and French, among others. In this exhaustively researched and elegantly written study, Princeton historian Silver asks how all the Europeans lived side by side. The answer, Silver says, is that they were solidified into a single people during the Seven Years' War in the 1750s by the fear of Indian attack. The motley Europeans morphed into white people, defined in opposition to Indians. (An intriguing appendix reveals that colonial newspapers tended to use the adjective white to describe people principally during bouts of Indian war.) But not everyone with pale skin became part of this new people the most fascinating sections of the book explore why some European settlers, such as Quakers (who were accused of betraying white people's interests), were excluded from the collective. Silver also shows how fears of Indian menace were taken up during the Revolution: patriots shored up a distinctive American identity and claimed that the British were engaging in Indian-like atrocities, such as scalping and cannibalism. Silver's study will change the way scholars think about whiteness and will reshape our understanding of how 13 distinct colonies were knit together into one nation. 13 illus., 2 maps. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Through an examination of the frontier regions of Britain's middle provinces in North America, which included Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Maryland, Silver (history, Princeton Univ.) eloquently explains how violence united groups that were initially divided by linguistic, racial, and religious differences. The work focuses on the period between the 1740s and 1780s, when the region was wracked by conflicts such as the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. Through graphic illustrations and quotes from the period, the author vividly demonstrates how extremists created paranoia among white Europeans that eventually led to the emergence of a white nationalism built on the common experience of a perceived victimization by Indians. Silver also demonstrates that Native American groups were affected in the same manner by the frontier violence, as a number of pan-Indian movements emerged that united disparate Native American groups in order to protect their communities from the numerous atrocities visited upon them by the white Europeans. This fascinating study on the role of frontier violence in forging a uniquely American psyche is highly recommended for academic and public libraries. John Burch, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

In the midûeighteenth century, the so-called middle colonies-New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland-were home to a remarkably diverse population consisting of groups who had often been hostile to each other in Europe. Germans, Swedes, English, French, Irish, Quakers, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews lived together but often in a state of uneasy tension. Yet out of this potentially volcanic mosaic a surprisingly tolerant society emerged, and it advanced the process of establishing an American identity. Sadly, according to Silver, assistant professor of history at Princeton University, this unity and identity was based, to a great extent, upon intense fear and even hatred of "the other"-the various Native American groups living along the western frontier of these colonies. These groups, feeling increasingly threatened by the encroachment of white settlers upon their traditional hunting grounds, sporadically raided settlements in the early 1750s. When the French and Indian War began, in 1756, these raids became chronic. This is a well-written, provocative, and rather disturbing work that is likely to generate controversy. Freeman, Jay. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Figures	xi
Charts	xiii
Map	xiii
Introduction	xvii
1 An Unsettled Country	3
2 Fearing Indians	39
3 Wounds Crying for Vengeance	73
4 The Seven Years' War and the White People	95
5 Attacking Indians	125
6 A Spirit of Enterprise	161
7 The Quakers Unmasked	191
8 Barbarism and the American Revolution	227
9 The Postwar That Wasn't	261
Conclusion	293
Appendix	303
Abbreviations	307
Notes	315
Acknowledgments	387
Index	391

Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.