Book Description

"Marks a distinct departure in the production of texts in American history." -Journal of American History, 1921 In 1920 Bolton published a text with T.M. Marshall entitled "The Colonization of North America, 1492-1783," which emphasized non-English colonies and English colonies other than the original 13. In introducing his book, Bolton writes: " This book represents an attempt to bring into one account the story of European expansion in North America down to 1783. Text-books written in this country as a rule treat the colonization of the New World as the history, almost solely, of the thirteen English colonies which formed the nucleus of the United States. The authors have essayed to write a book from a different point of view. It has been prepared in response to a clear demand for a text written from the standpoint of North America as a whole, and giving a more adequate treatment of the colonies of nations other than England and of the English colonies other than the thirteen which revolted. This demand is the inevitable result of the growing importance of our American neighbors and of our rapidly growing interest in the affairs of the whole continent, past as well as present." About the authors: Herbert Eugene Bolton (1870 -1953) was an American historian who pioneered the study of the Spanish-American borderlands and was a prominent authority on Spanish American history. He originated what became known as the Bolton Theory of the history of the Americas which holds that it is impossible to study the history of the United States in isolation from the histories of other American nations, and wrote or co-authored 94 works. A student of Frederick Jackson Turner, Bolton disagreed with his mentor's Frontier theory and argued that the history of the Americas is best understood by taking a holistic view and trying to understand the ways in which the different colonial and precolonial contexts have interacted to produce the modern United States. The height of his career was spent at the University of California, Berkeley where he served as chair of the history department for 22 years and is widely credited with making the renowned Bancroft Library the preeminent research center it is today. Thomas Humphrey Marshall (1893-1981) was a British sociologist, most noted for his essays, such as the essay collection Citizenship and Social Class. From 1914 to 1918 he was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and then joined the London School of Economics, the LSE, as a lecturer between 1919 and 1925. He went on to become the Head of the Social Science Department at LSE from 1939 to 1944, and worked for UNESCO as the head of the Social Science Department from 1956 to 1960, possibly contributing to the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was drafted in 1954, but not ratified until 1966.