No recent work of history...has presented such a distinctive--and beautifully resonant--authorial voice.--John Demos, Yale University

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.

In potent, graceful prose that sensitively unearths the social complexity and tangled history of colonial relations, Peter Silver gives us an astonishingly vivid picture of eighteenth-century America. He straddles cultural history, political history, social history, and ethnohistory to offer groundbreaking insights into the seminal forces that continue to shape the United States today. 13 illustrations; 2 maps.

Penetrates searchingly into a dark chapter of Colonial history.

In potent, graceful prose that sensitively unearths the social complexity and tangled history of colonial relations, Silver presents an astonishingly vivid picture of 18th-century America. 13 illustrations; 2 maps.

'With remarkable literary skill, Peter Silver . . . provokes hard thinking about the basic themes of our history."Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy

'With remarkable literary skill, Peter Silver . . . provokes hard thinking about the basic themes of our history."Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American DemocracyRelying on meticulous original archival research, historian Peter Silver uncovers a fearful and vibrant early America in which Lutherans and Presbyterians, Quakers, Catholics and Covenanters, Irish, German, French, and Welsh all sought to lay claim to a daunting countryside. Such groups had rarely intermingled in Europe, and the divisions between them only grew'"until, with the arrival of the Seven Years" War, thousands of country people were forced to flee from Indian attack.

Silver reveals in vivid and often chilling detail how easily a rhetoric of fear can incite entire populations to violence. He shows how it was only through the shared experience of fearing and hating Indians that these Europeans, once irreconcilable, were finally united under the ideal of religious and ethnic tolerance that has since defined the best in American life.

Peter Silveris an assistant professor of history at Princeton University. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.