Synopses & Reviews
From the bestselling author of
In the Heart of the Sea winner of the National Book Award the startling story of the Plymouth Colony.
From the perilous ocean crossing to the shared bounty of the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrim settlement of New England has become enshrined as our most sacred national myth. Yet, as bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals in his spellbinding new book, the true story of the Pilgrims is much more than the well-known tale of piety and sacrifice; it is a fifty-five-year epic that is at once tragic, heroic, exhilarating, and profound.
The Mayflower's religious refugees arrived in Plymouth Harbor during a period of crisis for Native Americans as disease spread by European fishermen devastated their populations. Initially the two groups the Wampanoags, under the charismatic and calculating chief Massasoit, and the Pilgrims, whose pugnacious military officer Miles Standish was barely five feet tall maintained a fragile working relationship. But within decades, New England would erupt into King Philip's War, a savagely bloody conflict that nearly wiped out English colonists and natives alike and forever altered the face of the fledgling colonies and the country that would grow from them.
With towering figures like William Bradford and the distinctly American hero Benjamin Church at the center of his narrative, Philbrick has fashioned a fresh and compelling portrait of the dawn of American history a history dominated right from the start by issues of race, violence, and religion.
Review
"A judicious, fascinating work of revisionist history. Mayflower is a surprise-filled account of what are supposed to be some of the best-known events in this country's past but are instead an occasion for collective amnesia." Janet Maslin, New York Times
Review
"Readers who pick it up to learn more about the Mayflower and its passengers will find themselves pulled into a much bigger and ultimately more meaningful story." Boston Globe
Review
"Philbrick's tightly focused account of this critical time in the beginning of the United States confirms that its origins are tinged with blood, darkness, ignorance and betrayal with shafts of light here and there." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Review
"A sterling synthesis of sources, Philbrick's epic seems poised to become a critical and commercial hit." Booklist
Review
"Philbrick triumphs in Mayflower because he combines it with empathy to challenge...myths about America's beginnings." Los Angeles Times
Review
"[A] part of American history almost unknown...one can go through 12 years of public school...without ever hearing of Massasoit, the Pokasset tribe or King Philip's War." Seattle Times
Review
"Philbrick delivers a masterly told story that will appeal to lay readers and history buffs alike." Library Journal
Review
"In Philbrick's graceful retelling of a story many think they already know, the virtues and vices of each culture are given their due....A remarkably sensitive account." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
Nathaniel Philbrick became an internationally renowned author with his National Book Award? winning
In the Heart of the Sea, hailed as ?spellbinding? by
Time magazine. In
Mayflower, Philbrick casts his spell once again, giving us a fresh and extraordinarily vivid account of our most sacred national myth: the voyage of the
Mayflower and the settlement of Plymouth Colony. From the
Mayflower?s arduous Atlantic crossing to the eruption of King Philip?s War between colonists and natives decades later, Philbrick reveals in this electrifying history of the Pilgrims a fifty-five-year epic, at once tragic and heroic, that still resonates with us today.