A meticulous blending of history and geography, this instructive and entertaining video offers a fresh look at America’s early colonies, beginning with the religious turmoil in Europe that drove disparate groups of people to risk the dangerous voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. Using animated maps, it traces in detail the early establishment of colonies by the English, Spanish, Dutch and French, as well as the geopolitical forces that fostered growth of the colonies along the coastline and their later expansion inland.