Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War is a must read for the Thanksgiving season. I picked this one up because I have been feeling that my education had been somewhat inadequate and I had many gaps in my understanding of American History. I decided to start at the beginning with some of the first settlers in America.
The first half of this book told of the voyage on the Mayflower, the selecting of a place to live, and the beginnings of a settlement in Plymouth Harbor. I was drawn in to the stories of how the residents of Plymouth made alliances with the Indians, which allowed some of them to survive those first brutal winters. This is the reason we celebrate Thanksgiving, but you might be interested to know what was the same and what was different at that first feast. For one thing, the main dish was not Turkey!
I'll have to admit that the second half of the book was rather long and less interesting to me. It told of a war that was started by King Phillip, an Indian, and killed a large percentage the early settlers and Indians that were living on the east coast of America at the time. I appreciated learning about a part of history that I was unaware had happened, but I found the details about the war less interesting than the stories of the early settlement.
If you have read this book, let me know what you thought. If you have not, this is a great book to pick up as we are approaching Thanksgiving.
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis would be a great book to read to help bridge gaps in understanding American History. I haven't read it yet, but I've had conversations about it with Micah's dad. It sounds very interesting!
ReplyDelete"Ellis focuses on six crucial moments in the life of the new nation, including a secret dinner at which the seat of the nation's capital was determined--in exchange for support of Hamilton's financial plan; Washington's precedent-setting Farewell Address; and the Hamilton and Burr duel."
...and a lot more!