The Peopling of the British North America: An Introduction – 4/5 Stars I am not sure how I would have taken this book if I hadn’t already read one of the later constituent parts. This short introduction is both of those things: short and an introduction. It’s also an edited version of a lecture series, and it’s also an historical argument that gets more fully articulated in two later volumes of about 700 pages each, so it’s no surprise that they get short shrift here. […]

This historical reading of the documents surrounding the creation of the Constitution, the thinking part of the American Revolution, and the eventual structure of the US government is an exhausting, if not fully exhaustive understanding of the variety of complexities of that period. It’s important to note that this book is a history of ideas, and as such, nothing happens, and is mostly about understanding how the thinking of the age turned into the revolutionary spirit, how that spirit vastly differs from person to person […]