A Town In-Between: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the Early Mid-Atlantic Interior. By Judith Ridner
The literature on Pennsylvania during the colonial and early national periods has become increasingly abundant in recent years, but it has concentrated on southeastern Pennsylvania, particularly Philadelphia. Because it focuses on a town in the backcountry, Judith Ridner’s A Town In-Between: Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the Early Mid-Atlantic Interior is a welcome addition to the historiography of Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century. According to Ridner, Carlisle’s geographic location along the frontier—both east/west within Pennsylvania and north/south in the mid-Atlantic—led to it becoming a placewhere residents faced the typical challenges of life in the backcountry along with the opportunities available to settlers who ventured into the hinterland.