Genealogy Books - Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: 1/2 Mayflower 1/2 King Phillip
Comment: As I read this book, I became startled when I noticed the key Pilgrims started dying off around page
150 or so. Brewster, Bradford, Standish... all wiped out to make room for King Phillip... who is
really the star of this story. The title of this book gets little coverage compared to the war that
came fifty years or so later. It's a great history, and the author knows his stuff, but the book
only briefly covers the subject that I at least hoped to read about. I'm also annoyed at the
constant comparisons the author makes to claim it was one of the deadliest wars in American history
based on the percentage of casualties. If he's so concerned with bringing that event into view, he
should have started with naming the book with a more appropriate title.

Customer Rating:

Summary: The best Hollywood scriptwriters couldn't improve on this story
Comment: A real page turner--how does a religious group band with a group of entrepreneurs and enter a world
they have very little information on? Think Star Trek on steroids--only this story really
happened!

This isn't the usual historical story--the drama of being near starvation,
depending on a Native that turns out to be playing you like a fiddle, getting flak from the people
back in England is gripping. I kept asking, what would I do in this situation?
/>Philbrick's writing and research blows away many of our myths about the Pilgrims and the Natives.
For instance, Europeans sent a weapon of mass destruction (disease to which Natives had no immunity)
just prior to the Pilgrim's arrival. Entire villages were wiped out. Squanto, who helps the
Pilgrims, plays upon this fear with the Natives.

When survival is at stake, what
happens to our best intentions? While some here that have said the Pilgrims had a failed experiment
in socialism (collective farming), the Natives used collective farming successfully. Also, the
Pilgrims did not learn how to fish, in spite of an abundance of this food source. Was it their
prevailing cultures that prevented both Natives and Pilgrims from seeing better solutions? The
Pilgrims especially had numerous blind spots. But how does one recognize blind spots, when there's
very few whom you can trust that know the territory? As the newcomers, could they have done more to
build trust among the Natives?

Philbrick invites the reader to imagine different
outcomes if the players had made different decisions--which makes the story even more
compelling.

What is utterly amazing is that this story happened at all, given the
obstacles everyone was trying to overcome. I came away with enormous respect for a number of
characters, even though I disagreed with their actions, I understood what was driving them. />
If you have limited time, read the first half of the book, describing the first generation
settlers. You won't think of Thanksgiving the same way again!

Customer Rating:

Summary: book review
Comment: The service was so prompt, I was happy as it was to be given as a gift.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A Good Read
Comment: This book holds your attention completely. What the Pilgrims and Indians endured captures the
imagination.

Customer Rating:

Summary: A great, mythbusting yarn
Comment: Many of the reviews (the 1-, 2- and 3-star reviews in particular) criticize the author for (a) poor
choice of book title, (b) shoddy history, (c) boring prose. The mixed reviews on this prevented me
from purchasing Mayflower for quite some time, until curiosity got the better of me.
/>While little can be said about whether a book is boring or not (to each his own), I'd advise those
lamenting the book's title to start reading labels - it was very clear on the back cover (you didn't
even need to crack the book) what this story was about. Similarly, to those self-proclaimed
historians - get out of the pop-history aisle and start buying textbooks. Nowhere does Philbrick
claim to be a professional historian; he is a writer and journalist, and having recently finished
Mayflower I feel that his 2007 Pulitzer nomination was well-deserved... Mayflower is a crackin'
good read.

In the prologue Philbrick makes it clear that he uses not only standard
sources for his story, but also oral history & traditions from the Native Americans of the region in
an attempt to tell a balanced story of the first settlers in Plymouth, their struggles, their
successes and failures, and the ultimate unravelling of what had been delicately created through the
bias and shortsightedness of subsequent generations culminating in "King Phillip's War". This bias
and shortsightedness can be claimed by both sides, although Philbrick levels a larger portion at the
English/Pilgrims/Puritans - choose your label - and, for my money, he backs it up nicely. What
makes Puritan culpability more believable is that we see the same mistakes being made today by
arguably better educated and more world-wise governments.

Mayflower isn't all roses. I
would like to have seen Philbrick spend a little more time on some of the better known aspects of
the Pilgrim national myth - the time in England and Holland, the first Thanksgiving, etc. - but the
story doesn't suffer for it. In fact, I would have welcomed another 50 pages, or so, in such a
well-written book.

All said, I found Mayflower to be a great read - exposing
time-honored myths in a believable way that does not diminish the accomplishments of the passengers
of that ship one iota. Removing the romantic patina that's built up over the years allows us to
appreciate the story more - warts and all.

Maybe we can even learn something from
this...

Back to Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

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