(University of Nebraska Press, 1994)

     This illustrated collection of essays examines early Native American contact with European explorers, fishermen, and traders in "Norumbega," the 16th-century name of the Atlantic coast of New England near the Penobscot River in Maine. This coast was the focus of several French and English voyagers seeking a northwest passage and other avenues to riches and treasure. A tacit division gradually emerged: the French concentrated on the region north of the Penobscot and the English on lands to the south.

     The 100 illustrations in this book come largely from the Osher Map Library at the University of Southern Maine and include many rare early maps (1500-1800).

"This is  a superb and exemplary book, the kind that makes one wish similar treatments would be done for all parts of the Americas at the beginning of their exploration by outsiders. . . . When I say that this book is exemplary, I mean something well beyond commendable or laudable. I mean that this book should be imitated, that it should set an example ofr dozens of similar volumes on the other areas of the North American coasts, the Caribbean, Mesoamerica, and the South American interior, wherever we can combine the insights of cartography, exploration records, native cultures and trade and settlement accounts to illuminate the history of these crucial eras in the counter of two worlds." William and Mary Quarterly

"American Beginnings presents a wonderful interdisciplinary approach to the history of Norumbega from its conception in the European consciousness to the colonial period. . . . highly recommended."  Cartographica

"American Beginnings is an extraordinary volume and an essential resource for anyone interested in issues of exploration, cartography, contact, intercultural relations in both their physical and discursive dimensions, and European settlement in North America. A collaborative effort, multiauthored and edited by committee, the volume offers a plural, complex, and holistic vision of the human geographies that came together in the first two centuries after Columbus along the coast of what was to become Maine. . . . By tuning in to the richness and complexity of native perspectives and by recapitulating old evidence in the spirit of innovative approaches, it is symphonic with fresh insights and inspired revelations."   Journal of Historical Geography

"American Beginnings grew out of the Land of Norumbega conference held in Portland, Maine, in 1988. Although the book is concerned largely with the 16th-and 17th-century history of the Maine coast, there is much here of value to the student of the history of Atlantic Canada and of early European exploration. This volume is also convincing evidence of the value of multidisciplinary studies - the contributors include historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, and geographers, and most of the essays are interdisciplinary in nature." Canadian Historical Review

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