a few themes regarding colonial and revolutionary America

in no particular order:

• the search for origins is often linked to the search for what makes America America.  This holds whether you believe in American exceptionalism or whether you're intentionally setting out to break it down.
• religion and the development of American culture
• ideology, the American revolution, and the development of a unitary (or not) American culture
• conflict with Native Americans and slavery are both central to the formation of American culture, though these vary with time and place
• where, geographically, American culture can be said to have started, and what it means to locate the origin point there: New England, Virginia, the Great Lakes
• animals and property as a key difference and source of conflict between Native Americans and English settlers