(Part 2) Best us colonial period history books according to redditors
We found 326 Reddit comments discussing the best us colonial period history books. We ranked the 115 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
My comments are specifically going to focus on the 17th and 18th century practices in North America.
>Who exactly was eligible? Ordained members of the Catholic church obviously, but I've found references to laypeople claiming it too.
By the 16th century at least, benefit of clergy was available to common people. The earliest record for benefit of clergy being used in North America is in 1628 in Virginia.
To be eligible you had to be able to read and be white (though in the 18th century the benefit of clergy was expanded to include free non-whites). The reading requirement was somewhat lax though, as the normal method for testing the ability of a person to read was to have them quote Psalm 51 "Have mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness; according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences."
In America this requirement was eliminated by 1732.
>Was the advantage in that you were more likely to be found not guilty by your peers in the church, or that punishments were generally less harsh when found guilty?
The benefit of clergy would not prevent someone from being charged, nor would it give someone a higher chance of a not-guilty verdict. The person claiming benefit of clergy didn't do so until after the verdict--so they would still be tried in a secular court, and punishment wold be determined by the secular judges. The case would not be transferred to an ecclesiastical court.
The purpose was to give first-time offenders a chance to claim leniency in their punishment.
>And on that note, what kinds of punishments were handed out?
If you claimed benefit of clergy you would be branded on your thumb or hand to mark you as having taken advantage of this. This would prevent you from trying to claim it a second time. Sometimes transportation was used as a penalty instead (so a person might be transported from England to America, or if in America would be evicted from the colony they were in). The branding would normally be the letter M for "manslayer"
>Were there any crimes that you couldn't claim benefit of clergy for?
Yes. Actually were only a handful of crimes that were "clergyable". Originally the only crime that could claim this benefit was manslaughter. Eventually this list was expanded to include mutiny and rebellion, murder, incest, rape, and adultery
>Was it possible for the Church to refuse to hear the case and remand you back to civil authorities if they wished?
By at least 1575 the Church no longer heard cases from those claiming benefit of clergy. The cases were tried in regular courts and then the guilty party would claim the benefit of clergy before the punishment was announced.
>Was there much variation in how the practices was administered country to country?
I believe that benefit of clergy is strictly an English tradition.
>At what point did it start to decline? It seems to have been on the books, at least in some countries, at least through the 18th century, but was it actually being used much that late?
It was used in 1770 in the Boston Massacre Trial. Two of the eight soldiers were convicted of manslaughter and plead "benefit of clergy" to avoid a potential hanging or long imprisonment. By this point the practice seems to have been restricted largely to manslaughter cases. The guilty party would be branded with an M for "manslayer".
Sources:
1.) As If an Enemy's Country: The British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution
2.) The Benefit of Clergy Plea
3.) "Benefit of Clergy" in Maryland and Virginia by Jeffrey K Sawyer
Three that come quickly to mind:
A History of the World in Six Glasses
Salt: A World History
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America
This makes me feel like we need a thread to talk about what we’re currently reading. I think that’d be cool.
I’m reading Magic, Witchcraft and Religion and re-reading Urban Shaman right now. First one’s a textbook so it’s really dry but it’s fascinating anyway. Second one is a personal favorite I keep going back to. And I was just gifted In the Devil’s Snare which I’ve been meaning to read for a while, so I’ve got my hands full too.
I can recommend the Russell Shorto book The Island at the Centre of the World.
Recommended.
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> You have John Hagee actually saying that when a woman uses sex to manipulate a man, it's witchcraft. He goes on to say that any time a person tries to manipulate a person, whether it be children, or mothers, it's witchcraft.
> That may be the single dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Possibly, but it isn't all that far removed from the circumstances of historical witch-persecution. John Demos' book Entertaining Satan is illuminating in that regard. It uses the wealth of primary evidence available from the American witch crazes to examine the characters involved, and one of the things that it reveals is that some of these figures had personalities that were, well, vexing. You find in it the expected -- people railroaded into victimization because for unfortunate reasons -- but you also find characters who continually manipulate their neighbors, harass them, revel in their accusations, and generally exhibit a high degree of misanthropy. And in those cases, the accusation of witchcraft ceases to be a simply matter of letting your fantasies run wild; it becomes, rather, a condemnation of the person's entire attitude towards human society, a catch-all for the myriad ways in which they've set themselves against community.
None of which I say to justify any of it. I just wanted to point out the similarities between what Hagee has said on the matter and the sentiments that drove some of the historical witch trials. When one of the central symbols of your experience is the association of misanthropy, anarchism, and deception with the demonic and diabolical, it's a short step towards associating those who exhibit those characteristics with witchcraft.
If anyone is interested, I highly recommend reading How Tobacco Seduced Civilization for more historical and cultural background information. Pretty fascinating.
Although it is not about specifically about colonization, Crucible of War which is about the 7 years war touches colonization, relations with the indians, etc.
In search of empire is from cambridge uni press and about americas in general.
The french in NA seems good but i haven't read that one.
You might be interested in chansons de voyageurs et de coureurs des bois ( i managed to grab a copy for cheap)
As always you can also check out wikipedia references/further reading.
I like the books by Robert Leckie.
From our reading list here at /r/History:
Robert Leckie wrote several good histories of the major American wars. Helmet for My Pillow was used to form part of the basis for the HBO Miniseries "The Pacific". But I am more a fan of his individual war histories:
Ah... I think I understand. I find the historical context/circumstances in which the degrees themselves (not the legends) arose and evolved.
Both works are well written and enjoyable to read. They are not approached as dull history texts, and the information density is manageable for all reading levels, unlike say Bullock's Revolutionary Brotherhood, which is an amazing work but in places can be exhausting given the economy of language and information density. It is the definitive work on Masonry in Colonial and Early America, but the language is off putting to those who are casual readers.
The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans
Is pretty good, its got some dry parts, but interesting.
https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-City-Improvising-New-Orleans/dp/0674725905
The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans.
Such an amazing read. Hands down the best account of the first two centuries of the history of New Orleans.
There are two books that I know of specifically about the spies: Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose and George Washington's Secret Six, which I'm currently reading and enjoying so far.
There's also Chernow's Hamilton, which is a thorough but good read.
Oh! And, a book called Benedict Arnold's Navy, which is about his life and action in the war far before his turn. It's really good so far, and I recommend it!
Ah. It is pretty dumbfounding, at times. I read a book on the witch trials called In the Devil's Snare which provided some insight into the motivations and actions of those in Salem.
The parallels between the witch trials and McCarthyism is what really gets to me. The similarities are striking, and start to point towards some upsetting, cyclical trends.
Great Resource!
Now I know what I'll be doing for the next few hours...
If anyone has not read Novus Ordo Seclorum, it does a great job (IMO) of summarizing some of the thought processes and initial reasoning for what ended up in the final draft of the Constitution.
I cannot disagree more.....
The witch trials was a very important example of the rift that was starting to grown in America between merchant and agrian classes.
I recommend you read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Entertaining-Satan-Witchcraft-Culture-England/dp/0195174836
Now, I admit that at times people get a little too deep into it, but as an event it is very illuminating about early American culture.
Just wearing the CPs today. These have held up pretty well over the past 16 months since I got them, especially considering what I've put them through.
AotD: I'm so f'ing close to finishing George Washington's War. I've been on a Revolutionary War kick for a bit now and this has been a good one but its long and reads fairly slow (or maybe I read slowly...). My next book is going to be something a bit less dense, maybe some PKD or Gaiman.
Thank you Roger!
Here are the Audiobooks available on Amazon:
Murray N. Rothbard
Conceived in Liberty
A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II
Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market
For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto
America's Great Depression
Henry Hazlitt
Economics in One Lesson
Frederick Bastiat
The Law
F. A. Hayek
The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism
The Constitution of Liberty
David Boaz
Libertarianism: A Primer
Ludwig von Mises
Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis
The Theory of Money and Credit
Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition
Friedrich Engels
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
Karl Marx
The Communist Manifesto
Milton Friedman
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
Capitalism and Freedom
Money Mischief: Episodes in Monetary History
John Maynard Keynes
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money
Robert T. Kiyosaki
Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
Here is a good book about the war in the north: Benedict Arnold's Navy
https://www.amazon.com/Benedict-Arnolds-Navy-Champlain-Revolution/dp/0071468064
Sorry, I got busy. The best I can do right now is give a link to James Madison in the Federalist. It specifically mentions the dangers of direct democracy. Beyond that, I would just try to find a good history of the US, which I should do myself, because I don't know much about the various views of the founders. Daniel Boorstin has a good, readable series, but I'm sure there are many good ones. If you have access to a university library, you might ask the librarian. While looking for sources for you, I realized my answer above was probably inadequate.
As If an Enemy's Country: The British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution - http://www.amazon.com/As-Enemys-Country-Occupation-Revolution/dp/0199895775
judicial scholars sure, not historians (except for the ones that write high school history textbooks) I was referencing the author of Ratification Debates:
https://www.amazon.com/Ratification-People-Debate-Constitution-1787-1788/dp/0684868555
She makes a good point in the book that we really should look to the ratification debates and not the federalist papers. The papers where written by the consitutions authors sure, but the debates are where people debated the constitution and then voted on ratification. Every single ratification convention in all the states had some delegates from the constitutional convention present to answer any question/comments the citizens had. These Q&A sessions shed a lot more light on how the founding GENERATION understood the constitution, which is arguably more important than how the framers understood it
Daniel Boorstin's 3-volume "The Americans" is incredible (here's the first one, the other two are the National Experience and the Democratic Experience). He was the Librarian of Congress for years. The book is told on the level of what it was like to be a person living at the time, rather than on the level of society (i.e. here are a few great men, here are a few important decisions; the rest doesn't matter). And while I learned a lot from Zinn, I find Zinn to be reacting to the prejudices of the American education system about history. If you weren't exposed to those prejudices in the first place, I don't know that he's the best place to get the full story.
Well it's a big big question. The framers believed all sorts of things and weren't nearly so monolithic in their perspective as politicians seem today.
If I could only have one book on what the framers themselves believed I'd go with this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0700603115/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/178-6525660-7786257
Its a dry somewhat technical read but its rigorous.
Sorry for the delay! So there are a few interesting places to start. I do want to warn you that I'm not a military historian. I'm a social historian who studies the causes and effects that events have on a society at large. So when I study war, I don't really study the battles, but rather the effects battles or wars have on societies. As a result, the books I am about to recommend aren't going to be ones that solely focus on warfare, but rather discuss the war, its battles, but also their effects on society.
Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 by Fred Andersen is pretty much the academic standard on the French and Indian War. Like most academic books focusing on warfare during this time period, Andersen will also talk about all aspects of the war, including civil affairs.
War & society in the American Revolution by John Resch and Walter Sargent feature a collection of essays that deal with all aspects of the war. Warning, this is a very academic piece but it's incredibly fascinating. It talks about all aspects of the war and it's impacts on societies at large (which is something you seemed to be interested in).
Another book I am reading currently is actually pretty new. It's called American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 but one of the most dominant historians in the field; Alan Taylor. I haven't finished it yet, but it does one of the best jobs of discussing the American Revolution from so many different perspectives -- something you may find interesting.
Another Alan Taylor book that discusses war is The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies. Taylor once again discusses the multifaceted struggles of war, and shows how dynamic it is.
Please let me know if you have any other questions. I will make sure I respond quicker this time!
Revolutionary Brotherhood is a good choice IMO. All about the history, and specifically the history of Freemasonry in America.
http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Brotherhood-Freemasonry-Transformation-1730-1840/dp/080784750X
Here's a link. I was lucky enough to not have to buy my copy, though it does happen to be reasonably prized for how much information it contains.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Revolutions-Continental-History-1750-1804/dp/0393082814/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498162078&sr=8-1&keywords=alan+taylor
From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 - Pauline Maier.
I enjoy reading about how colonial resistance turned to revolution. This book really highlights that subject. Colonial American's did not just decide one day that they wanted independence; the progression from resistance to revolution was gradual. This book covers the years leading up to the war and how that progression played out. It's a phenomenal read if you ever get the chance.
http://www.amazon.com/Resistance-Revolution-Development-Opposition-1765-1776/dp/0393308251/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1410925969&sr=8-2&keywords=pauline+meier