So I found a pretty great selection of books in the FAQ, but I couldn't find one for colonial history's founding up until the American Revolution. Found many after that period.
Any recommendations?
A good one for the early North American settlement is Bernard Bailyn's The Barbarous Years. It dispels quite a lot of hagiography about the steady progress and prosperity of the various colonies by the English, Dutch, Swedes, portraying them instead as very often in a hard, desperate scrabble for basic survival.