The idea of covenant was at the heart of early New England society. In this singular book David Weir explores the origins and development of covenant thought in America by analyzing the town and church documents written and signed by seventeenth-century New Englanders. Unmatched in the breadth of its scope, this study takes into account all of the surviving covenants in all of the New England colonies. Weir's comprehensive survey of seventeenth-century covenants leads to a more complex picture of early New England than what emerges from looking at only a few famous civil covenants like the Mayflower Compact. His work shows covenant theology being transformed into a covenantal vision for society but also reveals the stress and strains on church-state relationships that eventually led to more secularized colonial governments in eighteenth-century New England. He concludes that New England colonial society was much more "English" and much less "American" than has often been thought, and that the New England colonies substantially mirrored religious and social change in Old England.

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This book concerns the emergence and impact of the summer colony in the village of Southampton, New York, between the years 1870 and 1900, particularly the often fraught relations between the area's wealthy resort population and its year-round residents. Essentially a study in social change and conflict, the book revolves around a number of key issues that preoccupied inhabitants and summer residents alike and were the subject of great controversy at the time, including beach rights, oyster farming in Mecox Bay, and the loss of the Shinnecock Hills, first by the Native American inhabitants and then by the town itself to outside developers. Due consideration is given to those individuals who played major roles in these disputes. The book also explores salient and significant aspects of Southampton's early history insofar as they relate to the period in question.

American Historical Review is the oldest scholarly journal of history in the United States and the largest in the world. Published by the American Historical Association, it covers all areas of historical research.