Vexed and Troubled Englishmen 1590-1642

by Carl Bridenbaugh

The hardships of everyday life which led to mass emigration are the focus of an investigation into the local histories of seventeenth-century England

Genres: History

512 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1968

About the author

Carl Bridenbaugh was an American historian who specialized in colonial America. Bridenbaugh is best known for his two major books on colonial cities: Cities in the Wilderness: The First Century of Urban Life in America 1625-1742 and Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743-1776 .

Reviews

[Hugolane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was on the take for free at my university library. I think there was at least one other, maybe two, copies. I asked my early Americanist friend about it, but he didn't seem to know it, which surprised me given the claim on the cover that Bridenbaugh was a foremost expert on Colonial America. Over 50 years old it is doubtless out of date, something evidenced by this final paragraph-long sentence from the conclusion praising the Puritan immigration: "Whatever their reasons for leaving England-- a combination that differed with each individual-- and without any awareness of it, these ordinary men and women had together performed the most daring and portentous act of modern history when they succeed in planting a new nation where none before had stood." (Emphasis mine), as if the indigenous peoples history meant nothing. There is also only one off-hand reference to enslaved Africans, which given his focus on the why's of English immigration is less troubling, but definitely reflects the myopia of the time he was writing.

Having said that, and I am not an expert on Colonial America or England at end of the Tudor period through the Jacobean and Caroline era, this seems a competent survey of what life was like at the time that was very much in tune with the shift to social history that was taking place when he wrote this book. I can't say much surprised me here given my other readings, but the realities of the period were nicely laid out and the sourcing good that got me thinking. I probably learned the most from the final two chapters where he focuses on what he calls the Great Migration.

[Frederick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very readable history of the common people in England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, their society, and what prompted them to leave they homes for America and Europe during the Great Migration of the 1630s. It is rich in detail without being pedantic. The late chapters on the Puritan migration to the Massachusetts Bay colony are especially good.

[Nancy Shattuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bridenbaugh's academic work is useful for anyone writing from an historical perspective.