This book is every bit as good as praised. One of the best histories I have ever read. Book-length reply to Samuel Johnson's line, "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes? I don't think I've ever read a history book that was as *suspenseful* as this book. You know he's going to get to slavery sooner or later, but the tension builds after chapter upon chapter looking at the roots of English imperialism, tensions with Native Americans, labor and class in early Virginia. And then he gets to the point when exploitation of white servants gives way to the use of enslaved Africans, it's just devastating. It's also hard to imagine a better depiction of American pathologies: dehumanization of the poor, the interpretation of liberty as enabling "big men" to exploit free from interference, and the poisoned stream of racism running through it all. Even the link of firearms to all of the above.