Material Culture in Anglo-America

"Material Culture in Anglo-America opens a wide-ranging discussion concerning the tangible assets that were used to shape an Atlantic community during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A strong cast of scholars from diverse but related fields offers useful perspectives aimed at recovering the sense of place and presence as colonial outreach gave rise to a new regional identity. Offering a view from within a range of colonial locations, this volume demonstrates how the process of local creolization problematized triumphal nationalist claims."—John Michael Vlach, professor of American studies and of anthropology, George Washington University

"This volume is an important contribution to the study of British-American culture in the Lower South and the British Caribbean. It expands our understanding of the links between mainland and islands, enslaved and free, and people and things. Complex, richly textured, and thoughtful, it will become a starting point for those who study the region and our material past."—J. Ritchie Garrison, director, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware

"Scholars of early America often ask questions framed by broad economic regions. But how did someone actually experience a region? Is there a readable pattern in objects and spaces when environment, identity and cultural association create a true presence of place? Editor David Shields argues that material culture has the answers as sixteen scholars masterfully probe archaeology, architecture, urban fabric, household possessions and art objects in three similar but distinctive areas hugging the Atlantic. This excellent collection of essays provides important and timely ways of linking regional and global histories and shows how local sensibilities navigated within a general ethos—the essence of colonial relationships."—Ann Smart Martin, Stanley and Polly Stone Associate Professor and director of Material Culture Program, University of Wisconsin–Madison