Book Summary and Reviews of Our Savage Neighbors by Peter Silver

Our Savage Neighbors by Peter Silver

Our Savage Neighbors

How Indian War Transformed Early America

by Peter Silver

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  • Published:
  • Nov 2007, 352 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The colonial communities of eighteenth-century America were perhaps the most racially, ethnically, and religiously mixed societies on earth. Lutherans and Presbyterians, Quakers, Catholics, and Covenentors, the Irish, the German, the French, the Welsh—groups that rarely intermingled in Europe—were thrown together when they confronted the American countryside. Rather than embracing the inescapable and ever-increasing diversity, the European settler communities had their very existence threatened by the tensions and fears among their own groups. Only through "Indian-hating"—in both military and rhetorical forms—could the splintered colonists find a common ground.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Silver's study will change the way scholars think about whiteness and will reshape our understanding of how 13 distinct colonies were knit together into one nation." - Publishers Weekly.

"A delight for historians and a worthwhile challenge for the general reader." - Kirkus Reviews.

"This fascinating study on the role of frontier violence in forging a uniquely American psyche is highly recommended for academic and public libraries." - Library Journal.

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