Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower: A Journey of Voyage, Community, and Conflict

T. Graczewski: There has long been a great lacuna in American history – the 150 years between the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620 and the American Revolution of the 1770s. Nathaniel Philbrick turns his talented pen to this obscure period in the 2006 bestseller “Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War.”

Philbrick’s narrative essentially covers the first two generations of Puritans in New England. The first part, when the Pilgrims first established themselves in the New World, reads like a political science case study in balance of power theory. The Pilgrims landed in modern day New England during a period of great upheaval among the native population. The plague had decimated the region from 1616 to 1619. Many communities were literally exterminated by the disease. The tenuous balance of power between competing Native American tribes was shattered by the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620.

Massasoit, the great sachem of the local Pokanohet tribe, exploited his new relationship with the Europeans to the fullest. Caught between the powerful Narragansett and Massachusetts tribes, Massasoit looked to an alliance with the Pilgrims – small in number but possessing...

United States on Jun 16, 2021

Charles Scott: Mayflower Voyage, Community, War, is a well-versed, descriptive account of the people who arrived in New England aboard the precariously unpredictable, little wooden sailing ship, Mayflower, in the year 1620, and their descendants. The book is packed with interesting factual information, about which most readers probably never learned in school. It's worth delving into deeply, in my opinion. Our teachers may have simply skipped much of the minutiae and finer details of the topic; namely, those passages in the history books to which we were not introduced, regarding the Pilgrim and Indian story, that they felt should be skimmed away, glossed over, or sanitized.
As I summarize, highlight some of the more significant points, and lend my interpretation of this fascinating book to the average budding historian, then, you may follow along:
The arriving Pilgrims disembarking from their sailing vessel and landing in the New World must learn to adapt rapidly, and overcome their religious and personal differences. They try to cooperate as best as they can with their fellow travelers--be they like-minded, strangers or natives, in order to survive and thrive in largely unfamiliar...

United States on May 16, 2021

F.H. Kuijper: History is at its most potent when the lessons of yesterday flow naturally into today. Here, brilliantly constructed, is a river of resonance. We have warlords and constantly shifting alliances, treachery, bribery, bungling. We have religious extremism, racial hatred, military carnage and cover-ups. This could be Afghanistan or Iraq, as bloodily relevant as the latest roadside bomb. Instead, across four centuries, Nathaniel Philbrick offers us the New England of the Mayflower pilgrims, the benign myths that helped shape modern America and what really happened.

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He tells two essential tales separated by the moral corrosion of 50 years. The first, often inspiring in its fortitude, sees a young corduroy worker called William Bradford help lead his Puritan flock from exile in the Netherlands to the promise of Plymouth Rock. These settlers die in huge numbers from starvation and disease. Only a friendship forged with the Pokanoket Indians and their chief, Massasoit, gives them hope, then prosperity. But the one, over time, kills the other.

In the beginning, the Indians trade and prosper as partners. Too soon, though, the...

United Kingdom on Dec 28, 2016

Joanne: Thanks

Canada on Apr 27, 2016

Eric John: I ordered this book by Philbrick after enjoying "In the Heart of the Sea" so much and so far "Mayflower" is also fascinating. He really explains the Pilgrams (or rather "Separatists") religious beliefs and how they motivated their every every action.

Just moving to Leiden, Netherlands was a momental task for these people who had never before travelled outside of their small rural corner of England before.

But then to set off for America were no English colony had ever been successful, (except for the commercial project at Jamestown– where they suffered horrendous loss), shows their religious devotion and determination.

But this isn't a book just singing the praises of the Pilgrims, he spends most of the book looking at the years FOLLOWING, during King Philip's War, where the Native American's and the Colonists turn on each other.

Fair minded, well-documented and very read-able.

France on Aug 27, 2013

Cliente Kindle: ...che i pii pellegrini del Mayflower si comportasssero così. Un libro profondo che rivela molte cose ed entra nella vita quotidiana dei prmordi dell'America del Nord. Una lettura indispensabile per capire ANCHE gli Stati Uniti di oggi.

Italy on Jun 12, 2013

Hubert Reisinger: This is a book on two stories:
The first story tells the gathering of a religious community which endeavours to found a new existance beyond the ocean and its first adventures on cape cod an Plymouth harbor.
The other story tells the relationship of the native Americans to this colony an how it came to a forceful end after nearly two generations of more or less peaceful co-existance.
I do not know which is the more formative story for what the United States are today. When exploring what is the essence of today's America, you will find reflexions from both.
In any case both stories are great examples for the saying that the best stories have been written by life itself.

Germany on Dec 02, 2011