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Rating: 
Summary: Impassioned Revisionism
Review: A brilliantly-written, well-researched and incredibly impassioned telling of the European conquest of North Eastern America. My only complaint would be that after around 300 pages, the author's anti-european/pro-indian sentiments become a little wearing.It seems to be a standard orthodoxy these days that 'colonialism' was a bad thing, and that, possibly, European settlers didn't acquire the continent without a spot of realpolitic, but in the mid-70's, when this book was written, it probably opened a few eyebrows. The accounts of just how quickly the pilgrim fathers took to aggressive expansionism against local tribes certainly made *my* stiff upper lip twitch a little.
Rating:
Summary: Impassioned Revisionism
Review: A brilliantly-written, well-researched and incredibly impassioned telling of the European conquest of North Eastern America. My only complaint would be that after around 300 pages, the author's anti-european/pro-indian sentiments become a little wearing. It seems to be a standard orthodoxy these days that 'colonialism' was a bad thing, and that, possibly, European settlers didn't acquire the continent without a spot of realpolitic, but in the mid-70's, when this book was written, it probably opened a few eyebrows. The accounts of just how quickly the pilgrim fathers took to aggressive expansionism against local tribes certainly made *my* stiff upper lip twitch a little.
Rating: 
Summary: Jennings lays it out- you have to make yourself think.
Review: Book offers analyses based on thorough interpretation of primary sources.
It is a seed book portraying the event of European conquest on the North American continent. The magnitude of the underlying falsehoods that American history is based upon are what the reader walks away with after digesting this work.
The list of sources contained in the work are worth the price of the book
Rating: 
Summary: Very thought provoking
Review: Francis Jennings' first book, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest was path breaking when released in 1975, a book of "angry, forceful prose [that] still touches readers a quarter century after its publication," according to his 2001 obituary in the newsletter of the American Organization of Historians. In fact, Jennings himself was known for his "irrepressible" devotion to debunking the myths of Native American history of the colonial period, particularly the works of Francis Parkman. As his eulogizer Frederick Hoxie notes, Jennings early on insisted that "America began not with "discovery" but invasion," a belief which set "himself apart from those who viewed the fate of the continent's indigenous people as somehow inevitable or natural." The polemical The Invasion of America was the first in what Jennings called his "Covenant Chain Trilogy," with The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire (1984) and Empire of Fortune (1988) finishing the set. As Hoxie states, The Invasion of America (and most of Jennings' other writings) was a "frontal attack on the generations of scholars who, he argued, had internalized the racist language of the seventeenth century and overlooked the violence and brutality of European settlement." As another reviewer writes, "this is a strong, angry book," the prose of which is characterized by "the author's controlled outrage at what happened and at the misconceptions, distortions, and even lies he sees in the treatment of the period by other historians."
Rating:
Summary: Puritans as imperialists
Review: Francis Jennings' Invasion of America is still usefull reading, but... In the half of 70s' it was almost revolutionary work, and many (not only) historians looked at this as at nearly sacred text. But I think, that Jennings „adversary's" - i. e. Vaughan's - New England Frontier is more balanced view of Puritan - Indian relations in the 17th century.
Jennings book is divided into two different parts. First is thematical (and I think better), and second chronological. Author tries to apply the research done in the first part to the 17th century New England (second part). Jennings offers many interesting ideas, often highly provocative. He shows, for example, how the contention between single New England colonies (especially between Massachusetts and Connecticutt) influenced their Indian policy.
Book has two weak points, of which the second is essential. 1) Jennings' approach, especially in the second part, is not ethnohistorical, although he (in the first chapter) praises this historical subdiscipline. He focuses almost exclusivelly on Puritan policy toward Indians, and largely omits Indian actions. 2) He looks at Puritans from the perspective of 70s' of the 20th century through the eyes of a radical (left-wing ?) intelectual. So he finds nearly all Puritan actions toward Indians as bad. Their only goal was to conquer Indians and their land. They were real imperialists. He absolutely excludes the possibility, that Puritan actions could have been motivated by sincere conviction, for example, that they are just trying to help Indians (missions) or to protect themself (Pequot war; actions toward Narragansett and Eastern Niantic tribes in the 40s'and 50s'). I think, that this too much revisionst and sceptical approach is wrong. Historian should look at actions of his „heroes" through the perspective of time they were living.
In spite of above said, I think this is still an important book (not only) on New England history in the 17th century.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Work
Review: The beauty of this book...the author, though angry, uses the angry energy in a focused, forthright and definitive way. The result is an informative and detailed look at history that most may be surprised to read. Jennings analysis of the events is told in a story-like form, so that the reader is enlightened, then slowly taken in by the intrigue and intriging mischief of the day. Another title for this research could have been {the art of puritan warfare}. The author tells of the barbaric, imperialistic, and destructive engagements with the Irish as a prelude to the western invasion. This invasive group of people had plenty of practice. Word of advice, read slowly, don't miss anything...Fantastic Work...
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