The Forty Years that Created America

The Story of the Explorers, Promoters, Investors, and Settlers Who Founded the First English Colonies

Edward M. Lamont

The names “Jamestown” and “Plymouth” have become synonymous for most students of American history with “founding,” and “birth”—both, of the American nation, and of freedom and democracy themselves. In this book, author Ted Lamont asks us to reconsider our country’s formative years, and explore the stories, lives, achievements, and failures of America’s earliest founding fathers: those who paved the way for the Colonial Era, and the American Revolution. They were explorers, investors, passionate religious leaders, and determined developers who struggled for generations to successfully plant the English flag in this strange new soil. Lamont deftly details the ways in which the stories and struggles of figures like Sir Walter Raleigh, Bartholomew Gosnold, Richard Hakluyt, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and Captain John Smith were not just related, but connected in ways that help us better understand the colonies and culture born of their efforts. The infancy of America— from Roanoke’s founding in 1585 through the firm establishment of Jamestown and Plymouth in 1625—is where we first see planted the seeds of the rest of America’s colonial, economic, political, and cultural history, that was the immensely difficult, and often overlooked, first step toward the New World we are still working to perfect.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 296 • Trim: 5¾ x 8¾

978-0-8108-9607-9 • Paperback • December 2017 • $36.00 • (£30.00)

978-1-4422-3660-8 • eBook • October 2014 • $34.00 • (£25.00)

Subjects: History / United States / Colonial Period (1600-1775), History / United States / General

The Forty Years that Created America

The Story of the Explorers, Promoters, Investors, and Settlers Who Founded the First English Colonies

Paperback

eBook

Summary

The names “Jamestown” and “Plymouth” have become synonymous for most students of American history with “founding,” and “birth”—both, of the American nation, and of freedom and democracy themselves. In this book, author Ted Lamont asks us to reconsider our country’s formative years, and explore the stories, lives, achievements, and failures of America’s earliest founding fathers: those who paved the way for the Colonial Era, and the American Revolution. They were explorers, investors, passionate religious leaders, and determined developers who struggled for generations to successfully plant the English flag in this strange new soil. Lamont deftly details the ways in which the stories and struggles of figures like Sir Walter Raleigh, Bartholomew Gosnold, Richard Hakluyt, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and Captain John Smith were not just related, but connected in ways that help us better understand the colonies and culture born of their efforts. The infancy of America— from Roanoke’s founding in 1585 through the firm establishment of Jamestown and Plymouth in 1625—is where we first see planted the seeds of the rest of America’s colonial, economic, political, and cultural history, that was the immensely difficult, and often overlooked, first step toward the New World we are still working to perfect.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 296 • Trim: 5¾ x 8¾

978-0-8108-9607-9 • Paperback • December 2017 • $36.00 • (£30.00)

978-1-4422-3660-8 • eBook • October 2014 • $34.00 • (£25.00)

Subjects: History / United States / Colonial Period (1600-1775), History / United States / General

Author

Edward M. Lamont served in the U.S. Navy, and was a banker for twenty-three years with the World Bank and JP Morgan & Co. He also worked for the Marshall Plan and NATO in Paris and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, DC. He is a chairman emeritus of The Children's Aid Society in New York City. Lamont is the author of The Ambassador From Wall Street: The Story of Thomas W. Lamont, J.P. Morgan's Chief Executive and Ned Miner and His Pioneering Forebears. He and his wife Camille made their home in Laurel Hollow, Long Island, New York. They have three children and five grand children.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1Treasure, Cod, and the Northwest Passage
Chapter 2The Elizabethan Age
Chapter 3Probing the Forbidden Shores
Chapter 4The English Are Coming
Chapter 5Soldier of Fortune
Chapter 6The First English Colony
Chapter 7The King and His Princess
Chapter 8Exploring the Chesapeake
Chapter 9Captain Newport Returns
Chapter 10Troubles for the President
Chapter 11Under New Management
Chapter 12Northern Virginia becomes New England
Chapter 13Indian Partners
Chapter 14The Leiden Separatists
Chapter 15The Plymouth Plantation
Chapter 16 Indian Summer
Chapter 17Emerging Conflicts
Chapter 18John Winthrop and the Puritans
Chapter 19King Philip's War
Chapter 20Virginia and Massachusetts

Reviews

Lamont examines English colonization of the New World from 1585-1625 while taking a close look at the activities of Captain John Smith of Jamestown and Governor William Bradford of Plymouth. Between the uneven trajectory of colonization and the various obstacles settlers had to overcome along the way, Lamont arrives at the conclusion that to be motivated by profit was by no means a harbinger of success for colonists. Indian skirmishes, disease, and various disasters made it a wonder any of them survived at all. Lamont covers a lot of literal ground (from Quebec to Florida and beyond) and enlivens his narrative through diaries, letters and publications, and historical legends. John Smith plays a prominent role, particularly in his role as a promoter of English settlement. Many parts of Lamont’s story will feel familiar, but readers will learn a great deal more about Sir Walter Raleigh, Pocahontas, and the investors in the settlements. Lamont offers a concise but thorough profile of a period through the eyes of those who lived it.
— Publishers Weekly

Edward Lamont brings to life the struggle and sacrifice of the brave men and women who founded America. He has given us a well-told tale of folly and brutality, courage and vision—fortunately, more of the latter than the former.
— Evan Thomas, Assistant Managing Editor, Newsweek

True to his promise, Ted Lamont honors dozens of unique characters in The Forty Years that Created America. From intrepid explorers, to Pilgrims and Puritans, to Indian chiefs, a feisty John Smith, and a valiant Pocahontas, the stage was set for the transformation of His Majesty's plantation into a nation of free Americans.
— Phyllis Lee Levin, Author of Abigail Adams: A Biography