An analysis of American colonial history, told in twenty-four essays, is categorized under such sections as "New Englanders," "Southerners," and "Revolutionaries" and features detailed discussions on a wide range of topics including early American leaders and the impact of slavery. 40,000 first printing. Morgan, a professor emeritus at Yale, is the author of the best-selling, luminous, and comfortably read biography Benjamin Franklin (2002). He has been a contributor to the New York Review of Books for several decades, and the more than 20 review-essays gathered in his new book all saw previous publication in that distinguished serial. Assembled, the essays "amount to a kind of intellectual autobiography," for they represent, again in his words, "a statement of what I have thought about early Americans during nearly 70 years in their company." Obviously, then, the colonial period has been his specialty; specific topics discussed here include John Winthrop, Puritan governor of Massachusetts; slave life in the southern colonies; and, not surprisingly, for it is a favorite occupier of his thoughts and item on his writing agenda, Benjamin Franklin. Morgan's scholarship is beyond reproach, his voice sincerely welcoming. Brad Hooper Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Edmund S. Morgan has been writing for the New York Review of Books for forty years. A Sterling Professor Emeritus at Yale University, he lives in New Haven.