The Barbarous Years
The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 is the third volume in historian Bernard Bailyn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the growth of British North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Bailyn discusses the settlement of British North America within the context of both the Native American cultures of the region and the broader political context in Europe. He gives as much importance to Powhattan’s expansionist policies in Virginia as to the Dutch rebellion against Spain, the Thirty Years War, and England’s subjugation of Ireland. The resulting “conflict of civilizations” occurs on many fronts: nearly a century of brutal encounters not only between European settlers and native peoples, but among the Europeans themselves.
In addition to what Bailyn argues is a “single, continuous Euro-Indian war” from 1607 through the 1670s, settlers suffered continuous and destabilizing conflicts within and between the colonies. British settlers found themselves at odds with the Dutch, Finns, Swedes, Walloons, Germans, Danes and French Huguenots over religion, culture and commerce. Large-scale landowners of all nationalities competed with both small planters and land-poor freedmen.
Bailyn’s style is a successful balancing act between erudition and storytelling, large-scale history and telling detail. The general framework and many of the characters in Bailyn’s stories are well known to anyone with a basic knowledge of early American history; the details are not. Poised as a refutation of what Bailyn describes as “gentrified” histories of the early colonies, The Barbarous Years is a blood-soaked–and illuminating–version of a familiar story.
This review appeared previously in Shelf Awareness for Readers.
Road Trip Through History: Stonehenge
We caught our first glimpse of Stonehenge from the highway–the familiar stone circle silhouetted against the sky. I felt a flutter of excitement. After all, Stonehenge is a major Bronze Age site, built at roughly the same time as the Great Pyramid at Giza. Like the pyramids, it’s built from monolithic stones, some brought from more than 200 miles away. Unlike the pyramids, we don’t really know why* it was built or by whom.** As far as ancient mysteries go, it’s one of the most mysterious.
My Own True Love, who was not really interested, asked “Couldn’t we just say we’ve seen it and drive on?” As it turned out, he had the right idea.
The day was cold and gray. The wind was relentless. The line to get into the site was long. Protestors stood just outside the fence that defined the site, with signs urging that the ongoing excavations be shut down.***
Once we got past the ticket gate, the day was still cold and the wind was worse. The guidebooks had made it clear that visitors are no longer allowed into the stone circle itself without making special arrangements. Instead, you walk around the monument on a tarmac and grass path made for the purpose. Under the right circumstances, this could be an awe-inspiring experience–like circumambulating a Buddhist stupa. These were not the right circumstances. The crowd moved in clumps, stopping when their audio tours told them to stop and occasionally posing to take each other’s pictures with the stones in the background. On a warm day, it might have been festive. As it was, there was a dogged quality to the whole thing. Halfway around the circle, we looked at each other and said, “Let’s blow this pop stand.”
Close up, the grandeur was gone. We’d have been better off with the view from the highway.
* Most scholars believe the circle served as a celestial calendar, based on the alignment of its stones with sunrise and sunset at the summer and winter solstices. Recent discoveries suggest it could be part of a giant mortuary complex (there are some 500 Bronze Age burial mounds within a three-mile radius of the site).
** But we do know it wasn’t the Druids, who date from 1500-2000 years later.
***The wind was so high that I didn’t take notes–a fact I’m kicking myself for in retrospect. My memory tells me the signs cited reverence for a sacred site, reverence for the first kings of Britain, and respect for the dead. All good things–and yet….
Image credit: gianliguori / 123RF Stock Photo
Another Chance to Win a Copy of Mankind
Look at MANKIND shoulder to shoulder with a book by Barbara Tuchman on the bookstore shelves.
Those of you who didn’t win a copy of Mankind: The Story of All of Us have a second chance. I’m blogging about Big Bang, Big Brains, Big History over at Wonders & Marvels today as part of the 12 Books of Christmas give-away. Leave a comment on the blog post over there to be included in the drawing for Mankind. (Comments left on this blog won’t count for the drawing.) While you’re there, check out the essays and books of my fellow contributors and comment on anything that takes your fancy. If you want an additional chance to win, sign up for the newsletter.
Book promotion will be over soon, I promise.