This work examines the Middle Colonies--New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania--as a region at the center of imperial contests among
competing European powers and Native American nations and at the fulcrum
of an emerging British-Atlantic world of culture and trade.
Ned C. Landsman traces the history of the Middle Colonies to address
questions essential to understanding their role in the colonial era. He
probes the concept of regionality and argues that while each territory
possessed varying social, religious, and political cultures, the
collective lands of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania came to
function as a region because of their particular history and their
distinct place in the imperial and Atlantic worlds. Landsman
demonstrates that the societal cohesiveness of the three colonies
originated in the commercial and military rivalries among Native nations
and developed further with the competing involvement of the European
powers, eventually emerging as the focal point in the contest for
dominion over North America. In relating this progression, Landsman
discusses various factors in the region's development, including the
Enlightenment, evangelical religion, factional politics, religious and
ethnic diversity, and distinct systems of Protestant pluralism.
Ultimately, he argues, it was within the Middle Colonies that the
question was first posed, What is the American?
An insightful and valuable classroom synthesis of the scholarship of the
Middle Colonies, Crossroads of Empire makes clear the vital role of
New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania in establishing an American
identity.
