History of the Americas

[ 366 printed pages
presented in 26 webpages; 2 maps ]

Edward Gaylord Bourne's Spain in America recounts the Spanish voyages of exploration and the early colonization of America; and lays out the Spanish colonial system that at one time governed more than half of South America and a large part of North America as well.

[ 544 printed pages
presented in 33 webpages; 20 photos, 4 maps ]

Luis Galdames' History of Chile — an English translation of the Chilean historian's Estudio de historia de Chile — is an excellent survey of 400 years of that country's history, written with love of his country and as much impartiality as he could muster: it covers the initial European discovery, exploration and conquest, then the political and military developments of course, but also the intellectual and religious currents, and, to a lesser degree, economic and cultural aspects as well.

[ 10/27/11:
183 printed pages
presented in 11 webpages; 1 photo ]

History of Brazil is my orientation page to a collection of material that in Oct 11 consisted mostly of in-depth accounts by a single author (a very frequently cited authority) of the Dutch exploration and colonization in the north and northeastern regions of the modern country: Bahia, Pernambuco, Maranhão, Pará.

[ 4 journal articles: 82 pages of print ]

Many journal articles onsite, while dealing with Latin America and the Caribbean, also relate to the United States: nearly all of them are collected in my American History Notes section.

These, however, are not:

St. Brendan's Explorations and Islands

The Dutch and Cuba, 1609‑1643.

North Carolina's Troops in South America: "The Lost Battalion".

White Settlement in Saba Island, Dutch West Indies

[ 5/4/13:
47 books, and other items — 23,012 printed pages
presented in 3642 webpages
with 739 photos, 253 maps, 379 other images ]

Inevitably, the bulk of this site will still be about the history of my own country, the History of the United States. My interests seem to be moving me more toward the frontier period — 17c thru 20c depending on what part of the country! — but I've tried to establish a balance, so there's Revolutionary War and Civil War material, railroad history and a book on President Wilson, a subsite on Catholic history but also the diary of a Mormon pioneer: lots of stuff, both primary sources and secondary, and being added to at a rate of about ten books a year, not counting journal articles. You'll find a full breakdown on the linked orientation page, naturally.