The Barbarous Years

Bernard Bailyn's 2012 account of the brutal first decades of English settlement in North America — depicting the violence, starvation, disease, and mutual brutality of the 17th century encounter between English settlers and Native Americans.

Corrects romantic narratives of colonial founding — The Barbarous Years documents the actual conditions of early settlement: desperate violence, enslavement, starvation, and the near-collapse of multiple colonies — demonstrating that American civilization was built on sustained catastrophe for all parties involved.