Taught by a major contributor to the field of early American history, this course cleverly interwove history and historiography. Beginning with a history of the Atlantic world from 1350-1750 we read texts which explored European encounter, conquest and population of America until just after the penning of the Constitution. By reading twelve texts attending to topics including the development of the institutions of slavery, Native American role in the American Revolution, Puritan life and the Spanish frontier we explored a panoply of important issues on the continent.

This course is obviously very useful to the teacher of American history, especially as a corrective to the neglect of history before the establishment of the United States. In addition, along with the traditional monographs we read a high school/college textbook the instructor had written on the time period. Reading this text along with the others gave me the opportunity to see how textbook authors make use of the current academic literature on the topic in order to write for a younger, less knowledgeable audience. Watching this process helps me see how I can use my reading of academic books to inform my students of the state of the art in history.