He has written about captivity narratives; the New England frontier; witchcraft; ethnic revolts; colonial book publishing; and religious toleration in New Amsterdam and early New York. Drawing on the diversity of peoples, languages, beliefs, and politics in colonial America, and on the relations – religious and violent, friendly and legendary, personal and imperial – between them, the book he will be working on at the Cullman Center will trace the proud American democratic tradition to its imperial origins.