Bernard Bailyn did his undergraduate work at Williams College and his graduate work at Harvard, where he is currently Adams University Professor Emeritus and director of the International Seminar on the Atlantic World. His previous books include The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century; Education in the Forming of American Society; Pamphlets of the American Revolution, 1750-1776; The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, which received the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prizes in 1968; The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson, which won the 1975 National Book Award for History; Voyagers to the West, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987; and Faces of Revolution- Personalities and Themes in the Struggle for American Independence.
A group of unimpeachable assessments . . . A gem of a book, rich in understanding . . . A thoroughly urbane account of the provincial wellsprings of our nation's life. --The New York Times Seldom have . . . the American Founders . . . been celebrated with such depth and sophistication. --The New York Review of Books In the great flood of books about the American Revolution . . . To Begin the World Anew occupies a place all its own. A closely argued exploration. --The Washington Post Book World One of America's most discerning historians. His thinking is subtle. His style is forceful. . . . Throughout he retains a sense of wonder that those men in a clump of distant British provinces could have wrought a political system, a view of the world, that is so imaginative and enduring. --Los Angeles Times Deep, creative, brilliant, and provocative. In a word: dazzling. --Pittsburgh Post-Gazette