"dazzling social history of early America…Polk…is a masterful storyteller who takes us into a strange world and helps us to understand it."
— Publishers Weekly

"America grows from embryo to newborn, nurtured by an international cast of characters…Polk’s evenhanded, evocative account shows disparate groups fighting to carve out their niches in harsh new surroundings…Packed with impeccable scholarship and insightful analysis."
— Kirkus Reviews

"Casting new eyes on a familiar story--the Middle East is Polk's area of expertise--the author synthesizes a fluent account of British America from colonization to the imperial crisis of the 1760s and 1770s…Polk explains the friction between colonials and Indians, the establishment of economies both slave-based and commerce-driven, and, crucially, traditions of colonial autonomy that predated by generations the outbreak of armed rebellion in 1775...A fine popular history of America's origin."
— Booklist, American Library Association