The Barbarous Years

“Bailyn spares no gory detail, but he treats his subjects with sympathy.” —The New Yorker

“The Barbarous Years, the long-awaited companion to Voyagers to the West, is an even greater achievement. . . . Both in the span of time he examines (the years 1600 to 1675) and in his effort to capture the full range of ‘the conflict of civilizations’ in the early European colonization of North America, The Barbarous Years is Bailyn’s most ambitious book.” —The Daily Beast

“Bailyn’s extensive skills at demography, material history, and ideological history are on full display.” —The Wilson Quarterly

“Barbarous Years [is] a cornucopia of human folly, mischief and intrigue.” —The Washington Independent Review of Books

“Bailyn has given readers a bracing, unvarnished account of a century that determined what would follow.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Throughout the book, Mr. Bailyn patiently explains the origins of the people who migrated to America. Readers learn which regions of England, the Netherlands and Scandinavia produced the most migrants, which social classes were best represented, and the extent to which young males predominated within various migrant flows.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Magisterial. . . . Popular histories often gentrify these early events, but Bailyn’s gripping, detailed, often squirm-inducing account makes it abundantly clear how ungenteel they actually were.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Drawing on decades of sound, dynamic research, the author has provided scholars and general readers alike with an insightful and engaging account of Colonial America that signals a reset on Colonial studies, the culmination of his work. An important book. . . . Superbly told.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“In Bailyn’s perceptive and erudite hands, the original British, Dutch, and Swedish ventures assume as wild and variegated guises as did the forceful individuals who embarked on them.” —Booklist