Book Review

Canada and the United States

Gloria L. Main's new book is a fine synthesis of several decades' worth of research on early New England. Although many of us can remember a time when "peoples" meant Congregationalists and Anglicans—or Bostonians and Newporters—Main devotes nearly as much space to the Native population of New England, or what she refers to collectively as Ninnimissinouk. Divided into chapters that roughly correspond to the human lifecycle, the book explores sexuality, courtship and marriage, childbearing and childrearing, youth, and old age in both cultures. Prefacing these chapters is a very interesting introduction about the geology and formation of New England, and Main completes her study with two chapters that show how the lives of Native Americans and English colonists were transformed in the eighteenth century.

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Faced with an enormous amount of material, Main can only be applauded for the way in which she has interwoven an endless array of facts into a seamless narrative that shows the transition from birth to old age in early New England. The book is filled with perceptive discussions, bringing fresh insights to subjects that of late have become somewhat shopworn. Main's description of the way labor was organized and the way work was distributed in the preindustrial world is an unusually sophisticated approach to the development of gender relations.

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