Between Two Worlds

September 8, 2014
Gaskill (Witchfinders), a professor of early modern history at the University of East Anglia, offers an in-depth look at the experiences of the first three generations of English settlers on the American continent that examines their slow transformation into a new culture. As he states, this is an examination of a “neglected dimension of the history of England: what happened to its people in America, and the effect America had on those who remained at home.” Gaskill covers a little less than a century, from 1607 to 1692, a period in which settlers dealt with both culture clash and identity crisis, clinging to old ways even as they were influenced and altered by the frontier, its dangers, and the Native Americans already inhabiting it. Gaskill argues that instead of embracing new identities, “English migrants to America strove to preserve Englishness, and when they did change, the causes were not exclusively American.” Meticulously-researched and drawing on a plenitude of original source material, Gaskill’s study provides an underrepresented view of early American history. However, the dense nature of this book and its scholarly tone may ward off casual readers—it’s perfect for serious historians and academics, less so for those needing an accessible entry point to the subject. Agent: Peter Robinson, Robinson Literary Agency Ltd.

September 15, 2014
Gaskill (Early Modern History/Univ. of East Anglia; Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction, 2010, etc.) studies the effects of 17th-century colonization on three generations of English in both England and America. The first wave of sailors and planters failed abysmally. The settlements of Roanoke, Virginia, and Sagadahoc, Maine, proved that sailors are not planters and vice versa. Jamestown lasted longer and managed to export some tobacco, which King James I hated. The attempts at civilian plantations on the Irish model failed due to the great distance, cost, risk and political differences. The second wave he refers to as saints; those who sought freedom of religion by imposing their own. The Virginia territory did not succeed as well as the Puritans in New England, as they attempted to create individual estates and empires. The Massachusetts Bay Company concentrated on family units and communities, and their self-sufficiency and strict religious rules gave them the edge. As America struggled to survive by exporting fur (beaver quickly exhausted), cod and timber, England was looking to expand its empire and global influence. The Caribbean sugar islands of Jamaica and Barbados succeeded brilliantly but were entirely dependent on the African slave trade. In Virginia, class differences revealed that no one knew how best to do a job, and they couldn't even decide how to properly assign certain tasks. Gaskill is nothing if not thorough, and the book contains an overload of individual tales of horrendous sea crossings, hard winters, sickness and failure. Finally, in the third wave, the warriors came to establish order, setting out to annihilate the Indian populations and take their land. In enforcing the Navigation Acts and collecting customs duties and taxes, they also sowed the seeds of revolution. A comprehensive history of America's colonists, who struggled to separate while remaining English, and the English, who just wanted a cash cow.

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October 15, 2014

As a history of the English in 17th century America, and, in part, of those who remained at home, Gaskill's (Witchfinders) latest work is ultimately a disappointment. Though the author provides a great sense of the ambivalence of these early colonists and their continued connections with their homeland, the reader doesn't get to know these pioneers very well. Part of the reason for this may be that Gaskill is constantly introducing new people and situations. Only in the instances of major figures--Massachusetts governor John Winthrop, minister Increase Mather, and his son Cotton Mather, for example--do their stories continue throughout multiple chapters and thus become coherent. Such a start-and-stop manner of narrative means that many of the people and their lives begin to blur together and become indistinguishable. All of which is a shame because Gaskill's research was clearly thorough, and he has an immense understanding of the period, quoting ably from hundreds of primary sources. VERDICT Though very different in intent and somewhat outside of the range of the period Gaskill covers, David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America would be a good substitute.--Derek Sanderson, Mount Saint Mary Coll. Lib., Newburgh, NY

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