Representative Americans: The Colonists

About this book

This updated volume of "Representative Americans" highlights three generations of colonial Americans men and women who founded shaped and coined traditions of this country. This is a glimpse into a time of empire and frontier religion and science. The breadth of this experience is represented in the books three sections. "Pathmarkers of the Empire" are represented in the first section. Captain John Smith and Nathaniel Bacon though living half a century apart were frontier soldiers shaping relations between Native and European cultures. William Bradford and William Penn came to America also half a century apart hoping to found a community of the righteous. In the books second section "Swords of Empire " the imperial triangular contest among Britian France and Spain for supremacy in the New World is explored. "In the vanguard of the empire were the fortune hunters " Risjord writes. Among these "Caesars of the Forest" were Pierre Esprit Radisson and his merchant brother-in-law Medard Chouart who traversed the wilds of Canada in search of the elusive Northwest Passage. The books final section "Bridges of Empire " presents among others Cotton Mather and James Logan who stood poised between an older order of religious humility and a newer one of political will which would later blossom into national identity. Author Biography: Norman K. Risjord is emeritus professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he taught for over three decades. He is the author of "Chesapeake Politics 1781-1800" and "Jeffersons America 1760-1815". He is general editor of the "American Profiles" series for Madison House.