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Peter C. Mancall will discuss 'Contested Continent: The Struggle for North America, c. 1000-1680.' He will be joined in conversation by Steve Pincus. A Q@A and signing will follow the discussion. At the Co-op.
About the book: 'Contested Continent' is a far-ranging history of North America concentrating on the period from the arrival of Norse explorers to an explosion of revolts that revealed the stubborn struggle to master the continent some two centuries after Columbus's landfall. This history spans the continent from the North Atlantic to the West Indies and includes the entire Atlantic basin. Mancall emphasizes the experiences of diverse peoples while and tells a new story about the origins of major aspects of American culture. He illuminates the rise of a booming trans-Atlantic economy based on the extraction of abundant American natural resources; the central role that European migrants and their descendants played in the enslavement of Africans and the displacement of Indigenous peoples; and the spread of self-governing polities where many enjoyed religious freedom. None of these developments was inevitable. Conflicts broke out frequently as different peoples battled over precious resources. Europeans' appetites for material gain and expanding Christendom brought horrific consequences for those brutalized, enslaved, and vulnerable to infectious diseases.
This is a sweeping history of developments crucial to the eventual founding of the United States. 'Contested Continent' underscores the titanic struggles between the peoples who had populated the Americas for centuries and the migrants from the Old World who initiated changes that created a New World that offered boundless opportunities for some and crushed the aspirations of others.
About the author: Peter C. Mancall is Distinguished Professor and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at the University of Southern California. He is the author of eight books, including 'Contested Continent: The Struggle for North America, c. 1000-1680,' which is volume one of the Oxford History of the United States.
About the interlocutor: Steve Pincus is the Thomas Donnelley Professor of British History at the University of Chicago. He has written several books on early modern Britain and its Empire, with particular attention to England and Britain's interactions in the Atlantic.
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5751 S Woodlawn Ave, Chicago, IL, United States, Illinois 60637
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