Preparatory reading for Mason & Dixon

[Keith Davis]

I'm deep into my third reading of M&D. What a great book. In my humble opinion, just jump in and read without any preparation. If you get stuck, then maybe go back and read some of the things recommended here. 
If you get through it once, you can always go back and prepare afterwards!

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> On Nov 21, 2016, at 6:32 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> You might want to read about some of the personalities in M&D.  In addition to the main characters, prominent ones might be George Washington & Benjamin Franklin.  Both are humorously portrayed.
> 
>  I don't think Thomas Jefferson got portrayed, but he was one of the lead architects of the Constitution, and a proponent of "Enlightenment" philosophy, largely imported from France. 
> 
> David Morris
> 
>> On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 4:51 PM, Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com> wrote:
>> This is an interesting question.  I didn't read anything in particular before I read M&D, so I don't think there's any background reading required.  But there's no fun in that answer.
>> 
>> Apropos of that period of American history, very few Americans get much history about the century and a half before the Revolution.  My son took American History in the eighth grade a few years ago, and his textbook skipped from the founding of the Jamestown (Virginia) and Plymouth (Massachusetts) colonies in 1607 and 1620 pretty much to the Revolution without only a short digression about the founding of Manhattan by the Dutch.  This approach is pretty typical.
>> 
>> If you want to read a good history of that period, two I can recommend are Bernard Bailyn's The Barbarous Years, which covers 1600 to 1675, and Daniel Richter's Before The Revolution.  I particularly liked the latter, which (IIRC) emphasized the extent to which what happened in the American colonies was very much affected by transatlantic trade and political developments in Europe.
>> 
>> The other obvious book to read as background is Benjamin Franklin's autobiography.  And if you're going to read that, or even if you aren't, you should read Jill Lepore's Book Of Ages, about Franklin's sister and the limits of history.
>> 
>>> On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 1:06 PM, Alexei du Périer <alexei.duperier at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hello chaps,
>>> 
>>> I am planning on reading Mason & Dixon soon and would like to know whether there are any books I ought to read before starting in order to be familiar with the historical context/figures discussed etc.
>>> 
>>> I have never studied American history so don't know much about pre-1776 stuff.
>>> 
>>> Cheers.
>> 
> 
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