Between Two Worlds

Over 350,000 intrepid English men, women, and childrenmigrated to America in the seventeenth century, leaving behind their homelandfor an uncertain future on distant shores. Whether they settled in Jamestown,Salem, or Barbados, these early English migrants-entrepreneurs, soldiers, andpilgrims alike-sought to re-create their old country in the new land.Yet as Malcolm Gaskill reveals in Between Two Worlds,colonists' efforts to remake England and retain their Englishness provedimpossible. As they strove to leave their mark on the New World, they too werealtered: by harsh wilderness, by illness and infighting, and by bloody battleswith Indians. Gradually acclimating to their new environment, later generationsrealized that they were perhaps not even English at all. These were the firstAmericans, and their newfound independence would propel them along the path towardrebellion.A major work of transatlantic history, Between Two Worldsbrilliantly illuminates the long, complicated, and often traumatic process bywhich English colonists became American.