D.W. Meinig. The Shaping of America: A Geographic Perspective on 500 Years of History. Volume 1 Atlantic America, 1492-1800. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986.
This is the first of four volumes of a massive geographic history of the United States of America. Meinig's achievement combines his own expertise in geography with an impressive synthesis of historical literature. His readings of the latter are calibrated to a wide scale--sometimes continental, sometimes hemispheric, oftentimes quite intimate and local.
Volume 1 covers the Atlantic history era over the course of four parts, the first three of which cover major phases in the development of "Atlantic America" while the shorter fourth summarizes the nature of the new Republic. Each of the three parts are organized in chapters focusing on a single region, theme, or time period. In spite of the sprawling nature of the subject and the structure, the book is fundamentally simple and straightforward. Broader themes develop organically as the narrative moves through time and space. In the end, the United States seems to coalesce from long strands of human and social development played out on stage which is plastic in scale and dynamic in scope.
