Friends and Enemies in Penn's Woods

“Friends and Enemies in Penn’s Woods is a well-conceived series of essays that together treat the themes of coexistence and racial conflict. And they do so with great sensitivity to change. The essays reveal, in vivid detail, ordinary as well as great individuals grappling with these great problems. But, perhaps because they are written by both some of the most established scholars in the field and new, rising talent, the essays are not in complete harmony with one another, they do not tell a single, seamless story. Instead, this is a book in which many sparks fly.”

—Gregory E. Dowd, University of Michigan

“This is an excellent collection of essays whose authors, a combination of seasoned scholars and neophytes, make a special effort to speak to one another. This gives the book more cohesion than one usually finds in anthologies. I highly recommend it to professional historians and advance studies of Native American and colonial history.”

—Sherry L. Smith History

“Gathering together some of the best and most recent scholarship on eighteenth-century race and cultural encounters, Friends and Enemies in Penn's Woods is a testament to the dynamic state of early Pennsylvania history. Indeed, a plethora of submissions to a regional journal gave editors William A. Pencak and Daniel K. Richter the raw material to shape this volume around the work of thirteen historians, many of whom were nurtured in the academic community that thrives in the mid-Atlantic. This volume, then, is also a tribute to the stimulating scholarly discussions generated at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies and the rich archival sources found in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and other area repositories.”

—Jane T. Merritt William and Mary Quarterly

“As with most collections, the essays here vary in depth and quality, but compared to other collections, this one holds together especially well. Organized chronologically and dealing so closely with the same region and problems, the book situates the dark side of Pennsylvania’s history in an easy-to-follow narrative, with richness of detail and, remarkably, with little to no redundancy.”

—Nancy Shoemaker American Historical Review

“Every now and again—but all too rarely— a collection of essays appears that lives up to its title. The editors of Friends and Enemies in Penn’s Woods, William Pencak and Daniel Richter, have produced such a book.”

—Patrick Griffin Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography

“The authors as well as the editors are to be congratulated for their success in pulling a diverse body of work together so effectively.”

—Nancy L. Hagedorn Journal of American Ethnic History