Malcolm Gaskill re-creates the Englishness of early America in a transatlantic history that is deeply researched yet vividly told. Through his epic stories of adventure we gain a new appreciation of the planters, saints and warriors who established the English roots of modern America - men and women who helped make a New World out of the culture and language of the Old. David Reynolds, author of America, Empire of Liberty Between Two Worlds offers a comprehensive history of the English people's experience in America in the seventeenth century, in its continuing and changing relation to events in England. By including people in all the colonies and at all levels of society, we gain a true and compelling picture of these experiences. Karen Kupperman, author of The Jamestown Project A well-written, refreshing examination of seventeenth-century America (including both mainland and Caribbean settlements) from the English perspective. Written by an accomplished English historian, Between Two Worlds will provide readers with many new insights into the conservative English people who became Americans almost in spite of themselves. Mary Beth Norton, Professor of American History at Cornell University and author of In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 This is a superb book. It could stand alone as a sweeping and comprehensive account of the first century of English settlement in The New World. But Malcolm Gaskill goes further and offers us a fascinating view of the formation of an English America in which colonists gradually become Americans and the English at home become increasingly distant. Between Two Worlds is simply the best book on the subject. James Horn, author of A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America We don't really know ourselves until we travel elsewhere. For those who thought they knew their American or British history, Malcolm Gaskill's new book does just that. He takes two familiar histories that are often told separately, of England and colonial America, and shows how inseparable they actually were. Between Two Worlds is not just beautifully written and grippingly told-it is also arrestingly original. Andrew Preston, author of Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy This is the finest book that I have read for showing how the first English colonies in America influenced the homeland, and vice versa. In the process, it shows splendidly how complex and divisive the experience of settlement was, and yet how much it already shaped the future United States. Ronald Hutton

Malcolm Gaskill is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia. Educated at Cambridge University, he has taught at several UK universities and was formerly Fellow and Director of Studies at Churchill College, Cambridge. An authority on witchcraft and witch-trials, he is the author of numerous books and articles on the social and cultural history of England between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, including Witchcraft: a Very Short Introduction(2010), also published by Oxford University Press.

Preface ; Prologue: Worlds Collide ; PART I: PLANTERS, 1607-1640 ; 1. Brave Heroic Minds ; 2. Earth's Only Paradise ; 3. Each Man Shall Have His Share ; 4. The Vast and Furious Ocean ; 5. Full of Wild Beasts and Wild Men ; 6. A City upon a Hill ; 7. To Clearer Light and More Liberty ; 8. In Darkness and the Shadow of Death ; PART II: SAINTS, 1640-1675 ; 9. Calamities of our Brethren ; 10. Marching Manfully On ; 11. Devouring Caterpillars and Gnawing Worms ; 12. A Heap of Troubles and Confusion ; 13. Have You Better Hearts Than Your Forefathers? ; 14. Alas! Our Nehemiahs Are Gone ; PART III: WARRIORS, 1675-1692 ; 15. Exquisite Torments and Inhumane Barbarities ; 16. Juggling Parasites and the Giddy Multitude ; 17. A Swarm Out of That Hive ; 18. New England Their Native Land ; 19. The Little Daughter of New England in America ; 20. With Devils and Damned Spirits ; Epilogue: New Worlds ; Index