16th century

As the first volume in de Bry's celebrated Grand Voyages, a series of publications chronicling many of the earliest expeditions to the Americas, this book, which incorporates a 1588 text by Thomas Hariot, was illustrated and published in four languages. It became for many Europeans their first glimpse of the American continent. Accompanying the Latin facsimile is an English text. The first section is modernized from earlier versions of the English, and the second part, which accompanies the plates, is newly translated from the original Latin.

In addition to a valuable introduction, the book includes two illuminating essays. The first, by Karen Ordahl Kupperman, examines the early American settlement and tells how a collaboration between the writer and mathematician Thomas Hariot and the artist John White (later governor of the Roanoke Colony) evolved into a rich study not only of English colonial life but of the Indian culture and the natural resources of the region. The second essay, by Peter Stallybrass, uncovers new information in the much studied plates and presents an intriguing theory about the creation and importance of the engravings.
(From the publisher's description)

Addressed to specialists and nonspecialists alike, Before and After Jamestown introduces the Powhatans--the Native Americans of Virginia's coastal plains who played an integral part in the life of the Williamsburg and Jamestown settlements--in scenes that span 1,100 years, from just before their earliest contact with non-Indians to the present day.

This first comprehensive overview of the Powhatans emphasizes how the Powhatan jigsaw has been pieced together with bits of evidence from archaeology, history, and cultural anthropology. Synthesizing a wealth of documentary and archaeological data, the authors have produced a book at once thoroughly grounded in scholarship and accessible to the general reader. Recognized authorities in Powhatan archaeology and ethnography, they have also extended the historical account through the native people's long-term adaptation to European immigrants and into the immediate present and their continuing efforts to gain greater recognition as Indians.
(From the publisher's description)

Tells how different styles of colonial buildings were constructed using hewn logs, hand tools, and wooden pegs. Many detailed illustrations of tools and methods of construction

Includes a picture timeline of the evolution of tableware and eating customs from the 16th century to the Retro period. Articles focus on the changes in customs over time.