Rating: 
Summary: very good
Review: This book is excellent; the only book on colonial history you will ever need (although after reading it, you may be inspired to dig deeper). I wish more historians could write like Talyor. Only one small complaint -- I wish there had been more detailed maps.
Rating: 
Summary: The New Definitive Account
Review: This book represents current historical thought and writing at its best. Taylor has done what few historians today can accomplish. He has taken all of the areas that specialists now delve into and pieced them together into a coherent overview. This is a picture of colonial America from the perspective of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Native Americans. The writing is excellent, the thoughts of the writer are clearly conveyed and easy to grasp. Every reader will come away from this book having learned something about colonial America. Most will come away having learned a great deal... And they will have enjoyed doing it. Could not recommend it higher.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: This is a great book with a comprehensive scope about the settlement of America. What sets it apart from any other text is it's scope and approach. Instead of treating American history as a white anglo saxon story Taylor shows us the full range of human experience on the whole North American continent. While his focus is primarily on what would become the continental US he doesn't neglect Mexico or Canada. He also disrupts the traditional storyline of Anglo Saxon landings on the west caost and progressive advance inward into an "empty continent". Taylor shows us not only the Amerindians who were living in the American continent but the Spanish and MExicans in much of the American west, the French fur traders in the interior and the Russian settlements in the northeast. This is a great book for anyone wanting an overivew of American settlements.
Rating:
Summary: hard to put down
Review: This is a great book. I have a 2 year old and have to read in short bursts late at night before I fall asleep. Many nights I read far into the night. I learned so much that I hadn't known. Very well written. I could easily start reading from the beginning again without getting bored (well, maybe not, but it is still a good book). I will be hard-pressed to find another book I look forward to reading when my son finally goes to bed!
Rating:
Summary: great book great professor
Review: This is an assigned text for a class (History 170A) that I took with Professor Taylor last fall and I found it to be very informative and interesting. I would also like to say that professor Talyor is by far one of the best professors i have had to date.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful survey of American colonial history
Review: Traditionally, coverage of "colonial America" is confined to the study of the thirteen English colonies of the eastern seaboard - a narrow focus that overlooks the vast scope of European involvement in North America, to say nothing of the diverse peoples who had occupied the continent for millennia before Christopher Columbus's historic voyage. Alan Taylor rectifies this imbalance with this book, a wide-ranging survey of the first three centuries of the European presence on the continent and its impact on its inhabitants.
His scope is impressive. After an initial chapter that provides a 14,500 year overview of the population migration that settled the continent, Taylor settles into a masterful examination of the establishment of the European colonies in the region. The canvas is immense, encompassing the Spanish settlements of the Southwest, the exploration of Canada, and the establishment of the plantation colonies in the West Indies, as well as the colonization of the Atlantic seaboard by nearly a half-dozen European countries. Through his account he pays particularly close attention to their interaction with the indigenous population, as well as the trans-Atlantic relations with Europe and Africa.
Taylor's macro-historical approach does not exclude the details of settlement, though. Throughout the book, the narrative focuses on the individuals and societies of the various regions, detailing the choices they made, the factors that went into them, and how these choices shaped subsequent development. The result is a collection of divergent stories that would all eventually be tied together (though not necessarily within these pages) into the United States of today.
As the first book in the "Penguin History of the United States," Taylor has set the bar high for the subsequent volumes. By blending the latest scholarship and perspectives into a well-written account, he has produced a superb history of America's colonial development, one that is essential reading for anyone interested the subject and will likely remain the standard for years to come.
Rating:
Summary: American Colonies
Review: While living up to its unpretentious name, American Colonies is perhaps one of the most important works in eighteenth century studies to appear in many years. At first the reader feels like one is reading a modern interpretation of age old scholarship but with a political correctness, but one soon finds that Alan Taylor is original in his effort and conclusions. Some of his conclusions border on prophetic "without a God, the capitalist is simply a pirate and markets collapse for want of a minimal trust between buyers and sellers" (take that Bernie Ebbers) while others are a bit more far-fetched Sir Francis "Drake was more than a pirate because of the immense scale of his theft." But overall he keeps persoanl bias in check (or at least disguises them within the context of his writing).Because of the breadth of his scope, he has little space for details in several instances, particularly when dealing with English colonies, but Taylor's intent is to cover more in quantity rather than quality. He neglects to mention the first Pilgrims had originally settled in Leyden, Holland prior to Plymouth. He makes little distinction between Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay. He also tends to endorse rather than challenge existing myths on the Puritan work ethic. His most impotant contributions, even in their brevity, are those chapters peratining to France and Spain, and to a lesser degree Russia, for so little of what occurred with these colonizers has become common knowledge to the majority of Americans. In thses days of renewed patriotic vigor, it remains important to know that our national heritage expands well beyond what we received from Great Britain. Taylor's overall effort remains excellent and I would hope schools and universities across the country adopt this book, particularly since it's now in paperback, into their curriculum.
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