The city-state of Boston The rise and fall of an Atlantic power, 1630-1865

Peterson's most recent contribution to the field of early American history, The City-State of Boston, offers a substantial exploration of the history of Boston from settlement through the Civil War. Employing a Braudelian approach, Peterson organizes the discussion into three "books": "Render unto Caesar," "The Selling of Joseph," and "A New King over Egypt." Within this structure the author masterfully layers biblical metaphor, historical events, political spheres of influence, and material culture, evoking a longue durée surrounding Boston's rise and fall as an Atlantic power. Peterson is successful in achieving his aim, which is to "convey ... Boston's history as a slow and gradual emergence from the early modern world, rather than an impatient rush to find its place within a modern United States" (p. 21). Peterson's well-written, well-researched, well-argued book provides an intriguing perspective on New England history. The volume includes an extensive notes section; a detailed index allows easy navigation of the book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. --Anne P. Hancock, Emmanuel College

A historian thoroughly scours the record to resurrect the history of a well-intentioned ideal society that was ultimately "undermined by fatal flaws."Unlike many of the doomed early American experiments at colonization, such as Walter Raleigh's "lost" Roanoke Colony and other failures in Newfoundland, Bostoncreated to escape "the imperial decay and religious persecution that threatened England's government and church"succeeded, both as a center of Atlantic Puritanism as well as a trading hub. Created by a charter issued by King Charles I in 1629, the "city-state" of Boston, writes Peterson (History/Yale Univ.; The Price of Redemption: The Spiritual Economy of Puritan New England, 1997), was founded as a "self-conscious attempt to build an autonomous self-governing republic modeled on biblical and classical republican ideals in a New World environment." Though silver and gold were not discovered nearby, furs and codfish took their place and were entirely exploited due to a judicious bartering with the Native inhabitants, who, unlike the early settlers, were hunters and fishers. When these commodities became scarce and the economy in relation to English trade tanked, the enterprising Bostonians looked to the Caribbean colonies, where sugar production was booming. They began building their own ships, and slaves were imported by the mid-17th century. Sustaining Indian wars and Atlantic trade competition, Boston emerged from being a "backwater, a bystander in the puritan crusade against the Spanish foe, into a new transatlantic center of colonization to which other plantations looked for assistance." From there, Boston exerted its unique position by issuing its own coins, extending its territorial reach, and "fending off the crown's agents." Through specific historical personages such as John Adams and African-American poet Phillis Wheatley and chapters framed on biblical allusions ("The Selling of Joseph"), Peterson leads us through the city's Enlightenment ideals and how they clashed with the city's links to the American South's slave-driven economy.A meaty, methodical exploration of a crucial American founding stronghold. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.