Set between the important cities of New York and Philadelphia, New Jersey was both a pathway and a melting pot; a colony of shifting loyalties and conflicting real estate claims; a stepchild without its own governor until 1738 but with an independent temperament that led to scattered episodes of rebellion for over 100 years before the Revolution. Such themes are stated here but sometimes obscured by the dry chronological details of settlements, land claims, and legislation, deeds, deals, and incorporations, and an unending string of officials. Though brief later sections cover transportation, taverns, glass making, ironworks, churches, and slavery, the facts and flavors of daily life are absent; even the section on churches is devoted to listing denominations and ministers and sites of original meeting houses, with one flat anecdote about a Presbyterian split but no attention to the place of religion in colonial life. Conversely, in Cook's New Jersey Colony (1969) the issues and ideas and personalities vitalize the facts. Cunningham, however, provides extensive information for students (though they will have to process it themselves), and the attractive selection of photos, old prints, maps, and documents supplies some compensating lift.