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May 2015 Vol. 52 No. 9

Observing that early English settlement in the Americas was messier and less secure than popular memory has envisioned, Grandjean (Wellesley) maps out communication networks in 17th-century New England that connected English, Dutch, and American Indian inhabitants in a swirl of news and rumor.  The author tracks the movement of people and their letters from the first English settlement in Plymouth to the aftermath of King Philip’s War.  At first, the English were terrified of the forested interior, sticking instead to open water routes between coastal and riverside towns.  They relied on Algonquians, Wampanoags, and others to carry messages through interior footpaths, which created relationships of cooperation but also dependence and suspicion.  The introduction of the horse (which came into widespread use in New England after 1660) made possible the rise of postal routes and convinced English travelers and traders to use inland paths, which in turn led them to covet Indian land.  The resulting tensions, Grandjean argues, helped ignite King Philip’s War, after which English victory paved the way for a communications revolution.  Grandjean revisits well-known terrain but navigates it in innovative ways that will change how scholars understand the social geography of settlement.

--S. M. Balik, Metropolitan State University of Denver

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.