ABSTRACT
The Colonial Society came about because of big history and little history, but not the middling kind. Big history is made of long-term events, such as the industrialization of Europe and America and the globalization of world trade patterns. Little history is the all-important activity of private individuals, families, intellectual kin, and small groups. Individuals can think. They can look at the big-history events of their time and then draw their own conclusions. Sometimes they may rely on deeper thinkers like Tocqueville, but they are free to misunderstand or misremember such thinkers as decade follows decade.
