“Successfully demonstrates that class, not race, was the defining component of early Georgian society.” — CHOICE
“Meticulous, historically sound, and presented in a readable and engaging manner.” — Civil War News
“McIlvenna’s expert comparative analysis of primary sources allows for a complex picture to emerge. . . . Social history at its finest, and certainly the first book of its kind to point a lens at the complex political, social, and economic climate that marked early free Georgia.” — Augusta Genealogy
“McIlvenna tells a complex, multilayerd story of Georgia’s beginning in six chronological chapters that include details from a wide range of primary sources.” — Journal of Southern History
“A retelling of the thirteenth colony’s trustee era (1732-1752) from the standpoint of the settlement’s poor, white, and socially irreverent majority.” — Journal of American History
“Provide[s] valuable accounts of the development of the economy of early Georgia.” — New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century
“A meticulously researched and essential contribution to the study of slavery and society in the colonial South.” — H-Net
“The Short Life of Free Georgia is the best synthesis of Trustee Georgia’s history I've ever read. Basing her work firmly in primary sources, Noeleen McIlvenna offers a compelling interpretation that is a story both of the past and for our time. This is exactly what the best historical writing should do.” — Jonathan Bryant, Georgia Southern University
