Connecticut: A History

by David Morris Roth

By American standards, Connecticut is a very old place. The descendants of many of its original Puritan settlers still live here, and in their names--Hale, Baldwin, Trumbull, Bulkeley--the spirit of Thomas Hooker still seems to cast a shadow. From its beginnings, caution and conservatism have shaped the Connecticut character and have made its nickname, "The Land of Steady Habits," truly descriptive of life here.


Yet not everyone in Connecticut shares either that ancestry or that disposition. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, people of decidedly different backgrounds and outlooks joined the scions of old Puritans and Yankees to enrich--and to complicate--the state's history. Though endowed by nature and the shapers of boundaries with few resources and little space, the people of Connecticut from colonial times to the present have distinguished themselves as enthusiastic and talented purveyors to the rest of the nation of a vast array of goods and services. In the process, they have secured for themselves a degree of economic eminence shared by few other places, and they have proven that there is substance in the old idea of "Yankee inventiveness."

264 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1979

Reviews

[Helene Poppleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really informative and interesting. It has a contemporary feeling, even though it was written in the 1970s. I feel like I’ve taken a Connecticut history course.

[Dominique Lamssies · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this history isn't bad, I can't say it was all that informative. It's a good interpretive work, but if you are looking for a book that actually lays out the events of Connecticut's history, you're better off looking elsewhere.

This book is basically a strange combination of assuming the reader is extremely well versed in New England colonial history, being apologist for things, lists of economic facts and cheerleading for the state. So we spend a lot of time explaining why the Puritans did the questionable things they did, but not actually telling us what those questionable things are. As the book moves forward in time, there is actually some telling of events in the state's history, but not much and most of it involves the aforementioned lists of economic facts.

But the strength of this book is the beginning and the way it describes colonial life. I would recommend this book to anyone who really wants to explore the mind set and culture of the Puritans. Just make sure you know the facts of the history very well before you pick it up.