The Founding of American Civilization: The Middle Colonies; The Old South; The Puritan Oligarchy

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949. Complete in 3 volumes. 8vo. Various paginations. Photographic reproductions. Cloth in color illustrated dustjackets; housed in publisher's illustrated slipcase. Previous owner name in each volume & backside of slipcase; two volumes priceclipped; light wear to extremities & slipcase; some agetoning; a very good set. A definitive work in early American history, written by a leading American historian and Edwards Professor of American History at Princeton University. He brings to this wrok the erudition of a careful scholar and the illumination of a skillful, imaginative writer. Beginning with "The Middle Colonies" Wertenbaker explores how American civilization - different from anythink in Europe - arose and developed. In "The Old South" he discusses the origins of the people who came to the Southern colonies - English, German, Scotch-Irish, Swiss, Scotch Highlander and many others - and how the characters of the civilizations they brought with them formed the culture of the Old South. And lastly, in "The Puritan Oligarchy" he studies the Massachusetts Bible State, describing its chief features - the close relationship of the churches and the government, the stern code of morals, the expression of the Puritan spirit in architecture, literature and music, the educational system - then to the forces of disintigration.