Seasons of misery : catastrophe and colonial settlement in early America
(Book)

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Published
Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2014].
ISBN
9780812223774, 0812223772
Status
Downers Grove Public Library - 2nd Floor - Adult
973.2 DON
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Published
Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2014].
Format
Book
Physical Desc
260 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.
Language
English
ISBN
9780812223774, 0812223772

Notes

Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description
"The stories we tell of American beginnings typically emphasize colonial triumph in the face of adversity. But the early years of English settlement in America were characterized by catastrophe: starvation, disease, extreme violence, ruinous ignorance, and serial abandonment. Seasons of Misery offers a provocative reexamination of the British colonies' chaotic and profoundly unstable beginnings, placing crisis--both experiential and existential--at the center of the story. At the outposts of a fledgling empire and disconnected from the social order of their home society, English settlers were both physically and psychologically estranged from their European identities. They could not control, or often even survive, the world they had intended to possess. According to Kathleen Donegan, it was in this cauldron of uncertainty that colonial identity was formed. Studying the English settlements at Roanoke, Jamestown, Plymouth, and Barbados, Donegan argues that catastrophe marked the threshold between an old European identity and a new colonial identity, a state of instability in which only fragments of Englishness could survive amid the upheavals of the New World. This constant state of crisis also produced the first distinctively colonial literature as settlers attempted to process events that they could neither fully absorb nor understand. Bringing a critical eye to settlers' first-person accounts, Donegan applies a unique combination of narrative history and literary analysis to trace how settlers used a language of catastrophe to describe unprecedented circumstances, witness unrecognizable selves, and report unaccountable events. Seasons of Misery addresses both the stories that colonists told about themselves and the stories that we have constructed in hindsight about them. In doing so, it offers a new account of the meaning of settlement history and the creation of colonial identity."--Publisher's description.

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Citations

APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)

Donegan, K. (2014). Seasons of misery: catastrophe and colonial settlement in early America (First edition.). University of Pennsylvania Press.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Donegan, Kathleen. 2014. Seasons of Misery: Catastrophe and Colonial Settlement in Early America. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Donegan, Kathleen. Seasons of Misery: Catastrophe and Colonial Settlement in Early America University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)

Donegan, Kathleen. Seasons of Misery: Catastrophe and Colonial Settlement in Early America First edition., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.

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