The Colonial Experience

Professor Boorstin rediscovers the American character and way of life as it was shaped in the decisive years between the coming of the Pilgrims and the winning of Independence. A new perspective on the earliest ways in politics, religion, education, science, medicine, law, language, reading, publishing, welfare, diplomacy are voiced in this historical path of discovery.

Rejecting the notion that America was merely a "second chance", Dr Boorstin finds in the new and unforeseen conditions of early American life the roots of a distinctive civilisation.