Book Description
Praise for Blood and Thunder
“Kit Carson’s role in the conquest of the Navajo during and after the Civil War remains one of the most dramatic and significant episodes in the history of the American West. Hampton Sides portrays Carson in the larger context of the conquest of the entire West, including his frequent and often lethal encounters with hostile Native Americans. Unusually, Sides gives full voice to Indian leaders themselves about their trials and tribulations in their dealings with the whites. Here is a national hero on the level of Daniel Boone, presented with all of his flaws and virtues, in the context of American people’s belief that it was their Manifest Destiny to occupy the entire West.”
—Howard Lamar, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University and editor of The New Encyclopedia of the American West
“The story of the American West has seldom been told with such intimacy and immediacy. Legendary figures like Kit Carson leap to life and history moves at a pulse-pounding pace—sweeping the reader along with it. Hampton Sides is a terrific storyteller.”
—Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt
“Hampton Sides doesn't just write a book, he transports the reader to another time and place. With his keen sense of drama and his crackling writing style, this master storyteller has bequeathed us a majestic history of the Old West.”
—James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers and Flyboys
“Blood and Thunder is a big-hearted book whose subject is as expansive as they come. Hampton Sides tackles it with naked pleasure and narrative cunning: In his telling, the vast saga of America’s westward push has a logical center. The dusty town of Santa Fe becomes the nexus around which swirl the fortunes and strategies of a mixed set of serious overachievers, from Kit Carson, the original mountain man, to James K. Polk, the enigmatic president whose achievements, in the dreaded name of Manifest Destiny, were almost biblical in scope. Sides is alive to the exuberance and alert to the tragedy of the taking of the West.”
—Russell Shorto, author of Island at the Center of the World
“For a huge percentage of us immigrant Americans (those whose ancestors arrived after 1492), Hampton Sides fills a gaping hole in our knowledge of American history—a vivid account of how ‘The New Men’ swept away the thriving civilizations of the Native Americans in their conquest of the West.”
—Tony Hillerman
"BLOOD AND THUNDER is a balanced, thoughtful summary of the American conquistadors in the 19th century Southwest. Hampton Sides has re-created violent events and such inflammatory figures as Kit Carson without bias. Carefully researched, thoroughly enjoyable."
-Evan S. Connell, author of SON OF THE MORNING STAR, CUSTER AND THE LITTLE BIGHORN
A Magnificent History of How the West Was Really Won—a Sweeping Tale of Shame and Glory
In the fall of 1846 the venerable Navajo warrior Narbona, greatest of his people’s chieftains, looked down upon the small town of Santa Fe, the stronghold of the Mexican settlers he had been fighting his whole long life. He had come to see if the rumors were true—if an army of blue-suited soldiers had swept in from the East and utterly defeated his ancestral enemies. As Narbona gazed down on the battlements and cannons of a mighty fort the invaders had built, he realized his foes had been vanquished—but what did the arrival of these “New Men” portend for the Navajo?
Narbona could not have known that “The Army of the West,” in the midst of the longest march in American military history, was merely the vanguard of an inexorable tide fueled by a self-righteous ideology now known as “Manifest Destiny.” For twenty years the Navajo, elusive lords of a huge swath of mountainous desert and pasturelands, would ferociously resist the flood of soldiers and settlers who wished to change their ancient way of life or destroy them.
Hampton Sides’s extraordinary book brings the history of the American conquest of the West to ringing life. It is a tale with many heroes and villains, but as is found in the best history, the same person might be both. At the center of it all stands the remarkable figure of Kit Carson—the legendary trapper, scout, and soldier who embodies all the contradictions and ambiguities of the American experience in the West. Brave and clever, beloved by his contemporaries, Carson was an illiterate mountain man who twice married Indian women and understood and respected the tribes better than any other American alive. Yet he was also a cold-blooded killer who willingly followed orders tantamount to massacre. Carson’s almost unimaginable exploits made him a household name when they were written up in pulp novels known as “blood-and-thunders,” but now that name is a bitter curse for contemporary Navajo, who cannot forget his role in the travails of their ancestors.
Customer Reviews:
Fremont's Reputation.......2007-10-14
This is an excellent book except for the Fremont-bashing that seems to be fashionable. It is especially distressing that the material about Fremont came from a non-historical work with no scholarly background entitled "A Newer World". The author would have been better advised to supply his own supporting references. That is enough of a reason to knock off a star.
one of the best.......2007-10-13
If you have any interest in American History please read this book. We read the entire book outloud, quite an undertaking, so I'm glad to see that is available as an audiobook. The writing is riveting, the bibliography reassuring, the story enlightening. This book is a springboard into the conquest of the Western United States and will give you new eyes if and when traveling through these areas. Read the book.
Thoroughly engrossing biography of Kit Carson.......2007-10-12
This is an excellent biography of a famous American pioneer--Kit Carson. What sets it apart is its humane treatment of a complex figure. Carson appears to have been the "real deal," not a manufactured hero.
The book proceeds by interweaving several story lines, which can be somewhat confusing at times but, in the end, this serves the author well. Among the story lines--Kit Carson's exploits, the Navajo leader Narbona's story, General Stephen Kearney's episodes, and so on.
Kit Carson's role--from trapper to hunter to scout to military officer--is the glue that holds this book together. In the process, the reader learns a great deal about the events of the 1830s through 1860s that transformed the United States. The Mexican War dramatically expanded the size of the country; the American conflicts with the Indian nations opened new territories for settlement and economic development; the Civil War ended slavery (although, ironically, perhaps not in the southwest, as Native Americans sometimes served a similar role after the Civil War); the West was opened for development.
What humanizes this book is the treatment of Carson. He was sometimes mercurial (with an occasional burst of temper); he was a person of action, and he sometimes was cruel and brutal; he was also a person of honor; he had a perception of the larger picture in the West, and could see that white aggression was the real problem--not marauding Indians.
On a personal note, the book traces Carson's family lives (he had at least two real families, one with a native American wife), his struggle to be a good husband and father while he was off on one adventure or another most of his life.
This is a strong biography which is set in a larger context. It is well worth looking at.
Reads almost like a novel!.......2007-10-12
I first encountered this book when I heard the author speak at our local bookstore. I am a history lover and wanted to know if this man could pull of another interesting book on American History. I had a copy of the book ready and took copious notes on the blank pages in the back. The author was fascinating to listen to.
Since then, I have read the book thoroughly and found it read almost like a novel. Each chapter led you to want to read on.
I have purchased copies as gifts for friends and even gave a copy to my American Indian History professor and he was enthralled.
Good work. Loved it. You will, too.
Blood and Thunder.......2007-10-09
This is a highly readable and comprehensive account of the adult life and times of Kit Carson and the people/places he touched. It's not a biography, but a series of vignettes documenting his involvement in a variety of professions -- from mountain man to military man -- as the needs of the West evolved. There's a great deal of information about Carson's contemporaries as well. I read the book with a map of New Mexico at hand to more closely identify the places mentioned. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Western history, including the several battles of the Civil War fought in New Mexico.
Amazon.com
1491 is not so much the story of a year, as of what that year stands for: the long-debated (and often-dismissed) question of what human civilization in the Americas was like before the Europeans crashed the party. The history books most Americans were (and still are) raised on describe the continents before Columbus as a vast, underused territory, sparsely populated by primitives whose cultures would inevitably bow before the advanced technologies of the Europeans. For decades, though, among the archaeologists, anthropologists, paleolinguists, and others whose discoveries Charles C. Mann brings together in 1491, different stories have been emerging. Among the revelations: the first Americans may not have come over the Bering land bridge around 12,000 B.C. but by boat along the Pacific coast 10 or even 20 thousand years earlier; the Americas were a far more urban, more populated, and more technologically advanced region than generally assumed; and the Indians, rather than living in static harmony with nature, radically engineered the landscape across the continents, to the point that even "timeless" natural features like the Amazon rainforest can be seen as products of human intervention.
Mann is well aware that much of the history he relates is necessarily speculative, the product of pot-shard interpretation and precise scientific measurements that often end up being radically revised in later decades. But the most compelling of his eye-opening revisionist stories are among the best-founded: the stories of early American-European contact. To many of those who were there, the earliest encounters felt more like a meeting of equals than one of natural domination. And those who came later and found an emptied landscape that seemed ripe for the taking, Mann argues convincingly, encountered not the natural and unchanging state of the native American, but the evidence of a sudden calamity: the ravages of what was likely the greatest epidemic in human history, the smallpox and other diseases introduced inadvertently by Europeans to a population without immunity, which swept through the Americas faster than the explorers who brought it, and left behind for their discovery a land that held only a shadow of the thriving cultures that it had sustained for centuries before. --Tom Nissley
A 1491 Timeline
|
Europe and Asia |
Dates |
The Americas |
|
25000-35000 B.C. |
Time of paleo-Indian migration to Americas from Siberia, according to genetic evidence. Groups likely traveled across the Pacific in boats. |
| Wheat and barley grown from wild ancestors in Sumer. |
6000 |
|
|
5000 |
In what many scientists regard as humankind's first and greatest feat of genetic engineering, Indians in southern Mexico systematically breed maize (corn) from dissimilar ancestor species. |
| First cities established in Sumer. |
4000 |
|
|
3000 |
The Americas' first urban complex, in coastal Peru, of at least 30 closely packed cities, each centered around large pyramid-like structures |
| Great Pyramid at Giza |
2650 |
|
|
32 |
First clear evidence of Olmec use of zero--an invention, widely described as the most important mathematical discovery ever made, which did not occur in Eurasia until about 600 A.D., in India (zero was not introduced to Europe until the 1200s and not widely used until the 1700s) |
|
800-840 A.D. |
Sudden collapse of most central Maya cities in the face of severe drought and lengthy war |
| Vikings briefly establish first European settlements in North America. |
1000 |
 |
|
Reconstruction of Cahokia, c. 1250 A.D.* | Abrupt rise of Cahokia, near modern St. Louis, the largest city north of the Rio Grande. Population estimates vary from at least 15,000 to 100,000. |
| Black Death devastates Europe. |
1347-1351 |
|
|
1398 |
Birth of Tlacaélel, the brilliant Mexican strategist behind the Triple Alliance (also known as the Aztec empire), which within decades controls central Mexico, then the most densely settled place on Earth. |
| The Encounter: Columbus sails from Europe to the Caribbean. |
1492 |
The Encounter: Columbus sails from Europe to the Caribbean. |
| Syphilis apparently brought to Europe by Columbus's returning crew. |
1493 |
|
| Ferdinand Magellan departs from Spain on around-the-world voyage. |
1519 |
 |
|
Sixteenth-century Mexica drawing of the effects of smallpox** | Cortes driven from Tenochtitlán, capital of the Triple Alliance, and then gains victory as smallpox, a European disease never before seen in the Americas, kills at least one of three in the empire. |
|
1525-1533 |
The smallpox epidemic sweeps into Peru, killing as much as half the population of the Inka empire and opening the door to conquest by Spanish forces led by Pizarro. |
|
1617 |
Huge areas of New England nearly depopulated by epidemic brought by shipwrecked French sailors. |
| English Pilgrims arrive at Patuxet, an Indian village emptied by disease, and survive on stored Indian food, renaming the village Plymouth. |
1620 |
|
|
*Courtesy Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Collinsville, Ill., painting by Michael Hampshire. **Courtesy Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, N.M. (Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España, 1547-77). |
Book Description
In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.
Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. From the astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, which had running water, immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city, to the Mexican corn that was so carefully created in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man’s first feat of genetic engineering, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.
Customer Reviews:
a great overview.......2007-10-13
This is a great overview of early American cultures, and the various ways in which they shaped their environments. It is not an encyclopedia of Native American cultures, but uses specific examples to support the notion that the original inhabitants of our country have been misunderstood as lacking in initiative and expertise in manipulating the North American landscape... i.e. it debunks the "Eden" myth. Very well written and entertaining as well as informative.
Highly recommended for anyone looking for a more clear view of America before the arrival of Europeans.
Unputdownable.......2007-09-26
I found this book extremely enjoyable. It contains a wealth of knowledge about Native American cultures in N. and S. America; findings that are apparently well-known in academic circles, but which have remained largely unreported and unknown to mainstream audiences. Mr. Mann clearly admires much about the achievements of these pre-Columbus civilizations, and seeks to redress "common" misconceptions that most Westerners have about "primitive, savage" Indian life. I am glad I read this book. I learned a great deal from this book, and was fascinated by the subject matter.
This book is also beautifully written, and makes the subject matter accessible to laypeople. I was expecting it to be readable buy dry, but it was instead a book that just compelled me to keep turning pages. It helps to bring these ancient civilizations to life, talks frankly about the impact of European colonization on these civilizations, and challenges the reader to set aside his/her textbook knowledge and consider seeing Native Americans in an all new light.
Every now and then a book comes out that makes science "sexy." For example, "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond, or "Krakatoa" by Simon Winchester. To me, this is one of those books. It's both revealing and entertaining. "1491" was just a terrific read - thought provoking, compelling, entertaining, well researched. I even read all the appendices, and that's saying something.
I highly recommend this book.
Excellent insight into the latest research.......2007-09-25
Please don't confuse this excellent book with the poorly researched fantasy "1421: The Year China Discovered America." 1491 is an extremely well researched and documented look into the latest archaelogical findings and theories pertaining to life in North and South America prior to Columbus's landing.
Mann does an excellent job explaining the accuracies and flaws of the multitude of theories surrounding this topic. As he simply exposes the debates and doesn't attempt to resolve them himself, he provides an illustrative lesson that one should not become too entrenched with any particular theory on the pre-history of man as each theory is eventually overturned or modified by new findings.
His writing style seems similar to Jared Diamond. Mann, however, makes his points without getting bogged down in the excruciating details which makes this book much more readable than Guns, Germs, and Steel or Collapse (both of which were excellent books as well). With over 100 pages of notes and references he provides the reader with the necessary information for them to conduct their own level of research based upon their desires.
Fascinating but flawed.......2007-09-23
Henry Ford said that all history was bunk, and he had not even read 1491! What a shock to find that the population of the new world in 1491 was greater than that of the old world! That the natives, said to be long-term farmers, had shaped the landscape to suit themselves, that buffalo roamed in small numbers until old world diseases killed off most (90%) of the native tribes and thus allowed the huge herds to form. What a shock to find that many north American tribes considered themselves libertarian compared with the hierarchy bound Europeans. Yet more than enough evidence is given from old writings long ignored, and new archeological finds.
This is all fast and entertaining reading. There are many maps to help explanations, citations by page number, and an index. Mann traveled to several of the archeological sites.
On the downside, Mann talked of the "balanced diet" as though its desirability has been proven, and does not say how maize provided this "balance" (p18). The battle between Hernán Cortés's men and the Mexica was said to have been described as the costliest battle in history with 100,000 casualties (not deaths), (p129). Why no mention of Verdun in WWI with a million deaths and Stalingrad in WWII with a million deaths? Is a mammoth's molar really the size of a bowling ball? (p152) Mann wrote of winter on the Amazon river. I thought equatorial areas had wet and dry seasons, not the 4 seasons observed far from the equator (pp301,305).
But there is another, bigger fly in the ointment. Mann accepts the carbon dioxide from combustion hypothesis of global warming (pp300,308). Solar cycles of changing heat output and the sun's influence on cosmic ray effects on the Earth's clouds determine climate, not CO2 levels. [Jaworowski Z, Solar cycles, not CO2, determine climate, 21st Century Science and Technology, Winter 2003-2004, pp52-65. Accessed as a PDF on 5 Jul 07 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Jaworowski or at: http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/] According to Laurence Hecht, Editor of 21st Century Science & Technology: "Of all the hypotheses [on Earth climate], that of human-produced carbon dioxide as the forcing mechanism for warming is the most deeply and extensively studied, and by far the most discredited. No other hypothesis rests on such flagrant and lying disrepect for data as...on the falsification of the historical CO2 record." [Hecht L, What Really Causes Climate Change? EIR Science, 2 Mar 07, pp6-9. Accessed as a PDF on 5 Jul 07 at: http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/] The other big falsification in this hypothesis, skyrocketing temperatures in the last 50 years to levels not seen in 1300 years, is exemplified by the temperature graph of Michael Mann, which was shown to be a fraud, not just a mistake [McIntyre, S., McKitrick, R. (2005). Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, L03710; doi:10.1029/2004GL021750], [Soon, W., Baliunas, S. (2003). Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years. Climate Research, 23, 89-110].
So for historical controversies Charles C. Mann appeared to do balanced work, with opposing ideas neatly cited. But by failing to look up the "other side" on global warming, he missed effects of giant volcanic eruptions and solar output changes on temperature. The Roman era warming and Medieval Climate Optimum, both with temperatures higher than now and the Little Ice Age (1500-1800) were ignored, thus their effects on migration and population sizes was missed. Now it seems that the crop failures of the Little Ice Age were a main reason for northern Europeans to try to move to a warmer climate.
As always with with non-fiction, some errors make the entire work suspicious. Still a worthwhile book with its limitations in mind.
Great history, great archeology, great read.......2007-09-23
I love fresh looks on old topics. This book delivers on that theme. As a history teacher I find the same mundane, lopsided, and inaccurate truths presented in textbooks about this era time and time again. Mann's book is a counterweight to that miseducation and shed's light on often under appreciated and misrepresented Native American societies.
Book Description
This is a new edition of The American Practical Navigator, "Bowditch," offered by Celestaire and Paradise Cay Publications. This new edition is the most recent update of Bowditch, the definitive work on navigation.
Nathanial Bowditch first published this encyclopedic work in 1802. During the last two centuries over 75 editions, almost 1,000,000 copies, of Bowditch have been published by the US Government. It has lived because it has combined the best technologies of each generation of navigator. This new Bicentennial Edition includes the latest advances in electronic navigation and digital charting technology. It also covers nonelectronic navigation such as celestial, plotting and dead reckoning. Bowditch contains numerous tables which have been valued for years by practicing navigators.
Bowditch is carried on the bridge of every U.S. Navy ship and should be the mainstay of any serious navigator's library. Paradise Cay and Celestaire's commercial edition of Bowditch is a complete copy of the latest Government edition.
Customer Reviews:
The Definitive Navigation Manual.......2007-05-27
For over two centuries Nathaniel Bowditch's "American Practical Navigator" has trained sailors from all maritime services the basics (and then some) of navigation. Both comprehensive and surprisingly engaging, Bowditch is a must read for anyone serious about spending time at sea. As a companion, consider also purchasing the "Chapman Piloting & Seamanship"Chapman Piloting & Seamanship 65th Edition (Chapman Piloting, Seamanship and Small Boat Handling). Taken together, these two manuals build a foundation for a life time of safe and savvy boating.
The Definitive Marine Navigation Reference.......2007-05-12
What's to say? Bowditch is the best. Even though The American Practical Navigator is now on Line in PDF, for free, the Hardcopy of this reference book is essential. It is filled with information that would excite anyone interested in navigation. The descriptions of physical objects, sextants, for example, are beautiful. It is one of the finest and most error-free technical reference book ever printed. It is on par with Charles Evans' "Bibliography of American Books" (13 volumes) in which no one has ever found a single mistake.
Timeless Wisdom .......2007-04-07
If you love the sea and have an interest in navigation this is a must have. An incredibly vast amount of information and history in one volume. The significance of the original work is shown by the near reverence for this frequently updated title. As a reference on marine navigation it is head and shoulders above the rest. One of the joys of having a copy on the bookshelf is just opening it to a random topic.
As others have noted the book is available on the internet. However, the there's no substitute for having a real copy and the price is far below that quoted by some posters.
Sadly gps has replaced basic navigation skills among many who fly and sail with a resulting dependence that often masks a lack of situational awareness. For those whose sailing is recreational dependence on gps navigation removes one of the joys that comes from the exercise of competency in basic navigation skills.
Highly recommended.
A must for all who love the sea.......2007-03-01
30 years in the Navy, 13 at sea. This is the bible for all true Navy persons. I recall hours reading it, and endeavoring to absorb the wisdom of the sea as recounted by generations of those before me.
As a Commanding Officer I would put notes in the Night Orders which would cause the watchstnders to research during quiet time, usually they could find the answers in Bowditch.
A real gem, I still keep my copy close to read, when the lack of salt air causes me to feel remorse for my retired life.
Rok Kedney
CDR USN (ret)
The American Practical Navigator: "Bowditch".......2007-02-20
I was pleased with the material. The Practical Navigator is more focused on advanced piloting, electronic and celestial navigation than material in the basic Chapman Piloting and Seamanship. If you are looking for a more detailed explanation of piloting and navigation, I would suggest the Practical Navigator.
Amazon.com
"The men as they rode turned black in the sun from the blood on their clothes and their faces and then paled slowly in the rising dust until they assumed once more the color of the land through which they passed." If what we call "horror" can be seen as including any literature that has dark, horrific subject matter, then Blood Meridian is, in this reviewer's estimation, the best horror novel ever written. It's a perverse, picaresque Western about bounty hunters for Indian scalps near the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s--a ragged caravan of indiscriminate killers led by an unforgettable human monster called "The Judge." Imagine the imagery of Sam Peckinpah and Heironymus Bosch as written by William Faulkner, and you'll have just an inkling of this novel's power. From the opening scenes about a 14-year-old Tennessee boy who joins the band of hunters to the extraordinary, mythic ending, this is an American classic about extreme violence.
Book Description
An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion,
Blood Meridianbrilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.
Customer Reviews:
A blood soaked tour de force.......2007-10-13
Everything you've heard about Blood Meridian is true; it really is a magnificently written, blood soaked tour de force. If you're like me and read The Road or No Country For Old Men before this, Blood Meridian is probably both exactly and nothing at all what you're expecting. The punctuation, diction and themes of violence and desolation are very much here, however McCarthy's writing style is quite different. It's a lot more descriptive with long, stream-of-conscious passages - the flip side of The Road and NCFOM's sparse prose. As well, Blood Meridian explores much larger themes than The Road or No Country, everything from the nature of war and violence to metaphysics. As I read Blood Meridian I felt that it dragged a bit at times but since I put it down, I can't get it out of my head. Stay with it if you decide to read it - the final 12 pages or so are mindbogglingly good and well worth the trouble to get there. Recommended for any self-respecting person who considers themselves well read in American literature.
What's Lies Beneath Man's Thin Veneer of Humanity.......2007-09-19
Mr. McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian' examines the nature of man when the fragile constraints of civilization have been broken. To accentuate that all the horrors in 'Blood Meridian' area contained within each of us, Mr. McCarthy sets his novel in the land of our national myth, the 'Wild West.' Not Hollywood's 'Wild West' mind you, but one recognizable as something closer to what reality must have been. That's the truely frightening part.
As everyone notes, the violence starts early in the book and never lets up. Mr. McCarthy forces the reader to look, forces us to not look away. This horrific violence is the vehicle McCarthy uses to move the novel from on his pages to within our own minds. Once we follow the characters across the societally self-imposed border and left 'civilization' and 'humanity' behind, Glanton and 'The Judge' become OUR king and OUR high priest. As 'The Kid's' humanity slowly withers, we recognize the degradable nature of our own humanity. 'The Kid' is the reader. 'The Kid' is the individual. If we are honest with ourselves, McCarthy tells us that when faced with humanity's ever-present interior horrors (represented perfectly by 'The Judge') we are just as helpless.
That is the true horror of 'Blood Meridian.' Not the blood. Not the guts. Not even the dead babies. The horror of 'Blood Meridian' is that at any time we are a one choice, one action away from 'The Judge' and the constraining force of 'civilization' is tenuous at best. And once that thread of humanity has broken...
Mr. McCarthy's language paints a vivid picture but can be difficult to wade through. His word choice can be archaic and obscure, but no word (or sentence) in 'Blood Meridian' ever seems out of place. 'Blood Meridian' makes you work to understand what's going on. The 300 page book seemed much longer to me. Perhaps its because I reread passages. More likely it was because Mr. McCarthy can construct two or three paragraphs that give you the impression that you've seen every detail of a hundred mile journey, all within half of a page.
'Blood Meridian' is not a pretty book or one that fits within today's 'entertainment' consumer's expectations. 'Blood Meridian' is Hieronymus Bosch, not Claude Monet. Mr. McCarthy has created a novel sublime in its ability to frighten and disgust you. Don't let that dissuade you. It's well worth the effort.
Wordiness galore!.......2007-09-12
I think Cormac McCarthy is one of those authors who write for editors and english teachers more than the reader. How pretentious. There is unnecessary wordiness to this novel. It distracts from the story, which is pretty good. His sentence structure is such that I keep thinking that there are much easier ways to say something, kiddo! One reviewer compared him to Hemmingway, but I must disagree. Yes, they both fancy the compound sentence, but Hemmingway wrote in a simpler elegant style. And you can be a good writer and not have to constantly use obscure nouns and reversed adjectives and odd pronoun usage and...oops, caught myself in a compound sentence.
He's heard this criticism before. And maybe it registered because The Road is much better read. Short sentences aren't bad, mi amigos.
Obsessive.......2007-08-26
This is only the second Mccarthy novel I have read,I might try one more before I give up.
There's no doubt that McCarhty is a gifted writer, but I don't share his obsession with violence and inhumanity, maybe that's his point, and in truth, looking at the world today I wonder if we've made any progress at all. Nevertheless I can't abide the literary vision here. I think its a waste of my time to read something that tells me what I already know and pounds in the pointlessness of life, as the authour sees it, till I am sick to death of it, I know there's more to life than this, and I quit the book. I couldn't read anymore after less than a hundred pages. I knew the whole thing would be just more of the same so why bother?
I don't think McCarthys a great writer, he dwells too much on the irredeemably demonic in man. He's an interesting writer, his style, his antique knowledge, his ornate vocabulary, but it takes more than this to make a writer with a response to life that is worthy rather than an indulgence in the depths of horror humanity is capable of. If you want the classic depiction of this, but also with reflection and thoughtfulness about man's plight than all you have to do is read, "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.
1 doesn't begin to describe this waste of time.......2007-08-20
I listened to about half of the audio book and negative adjectives fail. I tried to tolerate it, I tried to give it much more effort than I felt it deserved or would ever reward me with just a experience that was better than listening to my own internal dialogue. The only thing I could even begin to care about was the animals. There wasn't a character that I was even remotely interested in, I certainly wasn't even the least bit curious as to what happened to them, let alone care about even enough to wish their demise. The evil, amorality of the characters hold no interest, no fascination and is very soon boring instead of evocative of anything. There is nothing inventive, interesting or otherwise at all compelling. You don't care about the Kid or the characters that surround him, you don't care about the people they kill, you don't care that the killings are brutal, and often indiscriminate. You don't care if they kill 10, 100 or 1000 Indians, Mexicans, by-standers or who or whatever ever. The violence is not fascinating, not shocking, not even numbing. In the end it's just repetitive and boring.
Read the phone book, read the want ads, don't bother with this, ever, for any reason.
Book Description
A master spy's memoir of playing the game in the most strategically influential country in 1960s Africa.
Larry Devlin arrived as the new chief of station for the CIA in the Congo five days after the country had declared its independence, the army had mutinied, and governmental authority had collapsed. As he crossed the Congo River in an almost empty ferry boat, all he could see were lines of people trying to travel the other way--out of the Congo. Within his first two weeks he found himself on the wrong end of a revolver as militiamen played Russian-roulette, Congo style, with him.
During his first year, the charismatic and reckless political leader, Patrice Lumumba, was murdered and Devlin was widely thought to have been entrusted with (he was) and to have carried out (he didn't) the assassination. Then he saved the life of Joseph Desire Mobutu, who carried out the military coup that presaged his own rise to political power. Devlin found himself at the heart of Africa, fighting for the future of perhaps the most strategically influential country on the continent, its borders shared with eight other nations. He met every significant political figure, from presidents to mercenaries, as he took the Cold War to one of the world's hottest zones. This is a classic political memoir from a master spy who lived in wildly dramatic times.
Customer Reviews:
CoS Congo.......2007-08-09
An excellent biography, discusses what happened during the Cold War in the Congo from his point of view. I found it an enjoyable read.
Exciting times.......2007-07-05
A good book giving an overall flavor of the Congo in the early 60's. It would be nice if Devlin had filled in more details however perhaps this is proscribed in his publishing agreement (I presume that he had to run this through the CIA before publishing it). You do get an idea of just what a CIA COS does to try to guide events to follow US policy. He's rather blase about the physical risks of operating in an unstable environment although maybe this is because he survived to tell the tale. I don't think that I would have my family at my side in such an environment.
Charts his many encounters and is a top pick.......2007-06-17
Author Larry Devlin arrived as the new chief of station for the CIA in the Congo five days after the country declared its independence, the army mutinied, and the government had collapsed: as he entered the country, streams of residents were fleeing. During his first year he was accused of murdering a charismatic political leader, saved the life of the man who carried out the military coup, and found himself confronting unheard-of challenges in Africa. CHIEF OF STATION, CONGO charts his many encounters and is a top pick especially recommended for college-level and military holdings strong in African culture and history.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
-.......2007-06-12
A little too general, very maddening that he left out so many details. But a necessary read for those interested in the Congo in the 60's
History Lessons.......2007-06-07
This book rewards its readers with good deal of information on a variety of subjects. It undoubtedly provides a very accurate account of the struggle of the former Belgium Congo to become a variable nation state. In the course of doing this, its author provides a plausible description of the chaotic condition of an imploding nation state and its leading political players of the period, including the controversial Patrice Lumumba and the man who turned out to be his chief rival Sese Seko Mobutu. Finally the book opens a window on how the U.S -Soviet Union Clod War rivalry played out in an newly independent African state like the Congo.
On a rather different level, Larry Devlin provides a good explanation of what a pro-active CIA Station Chief (COS) of 1960 did to earn his keep. One can carry away a good deal of information about good `tradecraft', the use of non-official cover (NOC) agents, and the vital need for a close relationship between the COS and the U.S. Ambassador. For a long period Devlin was not only COS Kinshasa (Leopoldville), but also the only CIA representative in the Congo. As a result, he discloses quite a bit about the art and craft of recruiting and maintaining `agents' in the field. Although virtually all memoirs written by former intelligence folks tend to be somewhat self-serving, from this book it is clear that Devlin really was good at his job and did his best to protect the national security interests of U.S. and equally important to help the Congolese build a viable and independent nation state. That in the end the Congo continues to be a near failed state was due to factors well beyond Devlin's control.
The problem then as now of course is that a really good CIA operative like Devlin and a really poor operatives are treated pretty much the same way by CIA. The system is really designed to homogenize everyone into the same bland blend. Also it is clear that CIA of 2007 would never allow a COS the kind of freedom of action that Devlin had in 1960.
Anyone with an interest in Africa or the CIA or both ought to find this well written and informative book fascinating.
Book Description
A feat of historical detection--the most significant, andcertainly the most enthralling, book on American prehistory to appear indecades.The greatest "unsolved mystery" of the American Southwest relates to theAnasazi, the native peoples who by the 11th century converged on ChacoCanyon (now New Mexico) and built a flourishing cultural center thatattracted pilgrims from far and wide, a vital crossroads of the prehistoricworld. The Anasazis' accomplishments--in agriculture, in art, in commerce,in architecture and engineering--were astounding, rivaling those of theMayans in distant Central America. By the 13th century, however, the Anasazi were gone from Chaco. Vanished.What was it--drought? pestilence? war? forced migration? mass murder orsuicide? Craig Childs draws on scholarly research and a lifetime ofadventure and exploration in the American Southwest to pursue the mysteryof their disappearance. Considering many possibilities, he points the wayto a new understanding of how a vibrant civilization collapsed.
Customer Reviews:
Childs has done it with this book..........2007-09-11
It's been a long time since I was thoroughly captivated by a book but House Of Rain has managed to do just that. Craig Childs is arguably one of the finest non-fiction writers today. For those of us who live and breathe the Great Southwest, Child's descriptions will bring back vivid memories of Sleeping Ute mountain in the distance and standing where the Ancients stood at Mesa Verde, Hovenweep, and Chaco. For those reviewers who felt like they needed maps and an answer, you can get maps at the visitor centers all bound up in glossy little books with equally glossy descriptions of people and places. This is not one of those books - it's so much deeper. This book is not a souvenier, it's a vehicle that takes you to places that a relative few will ever see and even less will understand. Sometimes, there is no final answer - there's just the lingering questions. That's part of what makes it so interesting.
Excellent Read With Interesting Personal Point of Views.......2007-09-06
This is the first book by Craig Childs that I've read. I will say it is an excellent book on the Anasazi. Craig has spent his whole life in the desert Southwest and appears to be quite knowledgeable about his subject. If you are the least bit interested in knowing a bit more about the Anasazi but don't want to read a "dry" scientific book about the subject, this is "the book" for you. Craig has travelled, worked and talked with many southwest Archaeologists who study the Anasazi. His discussions on the Anasazi are not boring and dry and his writing style is superb. I have a passing interest in the subject matter and this is one of the newest books on the subject and based on reviews of his other books, bought this one. I'm glad I did. Craig covers some controversial areas in regards to the Anasazi and where they went. They didn't disappear, their ancestors are still here, spread out over the southwest. He hits on a few quite creditabal possibilities and presents material to support them. I not being an expert on the subject but none the less interested and with some of my own ideas, I think Craig is on to something in regards to some of the reasons for the abandonment of the ancient sites across the entire southwest not just the Four Corners area commonly attributed to the Anasazi. Craig's descriptions of his backcountry travels are excellent and gives the sense that you are there with him which makes it even more enjoyable to read. This one is a keeper which I know I will read over and over again.
House of Rain, A Great Read.......2007-08-16
If you'd like to take a journey into the SW United States looking for the "missing" Anasazi, you should crack open this book, and delve into Craig Child's riveting journey. Child's style of writing puts you there with him, and he's very skilled at creating images that draw you into the adventure.
House of Rain .......2007-07-07
Craig Childs and "House of Rain" took me to places I've been and most importantly, to places I've been unable to experience. As I was reading this descriptive narrative of the Southwest that I love so much, I felt I was walking right beside him...excellent!
Exception read for the non-archeologist interested in the Anasazi.......2007-07-06
I already own several of Craig Childs books which I enjoy reading so that I can vicariously explore the canyons with him. This book is Exceptional. I bought it just last week at the Anasazi Heritage Center near Mesa Verde and Canyons of the Ancients while vacationing there with my wife and granddaughter. Living in Utah, we make yearly trips to the Moab area and southeastern canyons of Utah always hopeing to find a ruin to explore and photograph. This book is great for the non-scientist but those interested in the cultures of the Southwest like me!
Book Description
Following the traditions of Gabriel GarcÍa Marqu,z, John Gardner and J.R.R. Tolkien, Wicked is a richly woven tale that takes us to the other, darker side of the rainbow as novelist Gregory Maguire chronicles the Wicked Witch of the West's odyssey through the complex world of Oz -- where people call you wicked if you tell the truth.
Years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin -- no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or to overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. But Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters the university in Shiz, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz' most promising young citizens.
Elphaba's Oz is no utopia. The Wizard's secret police are everywhere. Animals -- those creatures with voices, souls and minds -- are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals -- even it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance. Even wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas.
In Wicked, Gregory Maguire has taken the largely unknown world of Oz and populated it with the power of his own imagination. Fast-paced, fantastically real and supremely entertaining, this is a novel of vision and re-vision. Oz never will be the same again.
Download Description
Packed with e-book extras, including the original classic, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, and the Reader's Group Guide. When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only one side of the story. Meet Elphaba -- a smart, prickly, little green-skinned girl who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil. When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil? Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.
Customer Reviews:
Great beginnings, fizzled at the end.......2007-10-16
One good thing about this book is that is was so different from the play that one doesn't spoil the other.
The first 3/4 of the book was can't-put-it down engaging, but it fizzled out at the end, starting just about the time of the arrival of Dorothy. Where earlier in the book the violence had impact and a message at the end it was gratuitous. The conclusion of the story was neither triumphant nor tragic, but rather disappointing and dissatisfying. The attempt at the end to make the storyline match up to the original Wizard of Oz plot was rushed and seemed contrived.
The play Wicked did a much better job in 2 hours then the book did in 500 plus pages of weaving the Wizard of Oz story into this one.
Still, for the amazingly true to life personalities, insights, wit, wonderful dialogue, and imagination I would recommend this book (see the play first and after).
Wicked .......2007-10-14
I have never benn a fan of "Wizard of Oz", but the background stories of the witches does entice. I read this book to get a fresh take on an old story- and I was not disappointed. I like the characters, and the way the story weaves around the original novel. But I do not like the constant reminders of religion and politics - after a while I had to check the cover and make sure I was not reading George Orwell or Aldous Huxley. The fresh spin on some classic roles was a fun, quick read. I hope that his other books are not as preachy or politcal.
It Would Put the Wicked Witch Off Reading.......2007-10-08
I got this book after seeing Wicked the Musical. The character of Elphaba, the predestined Witch, was presented as a sympathetic character. All of the book's best setup ideas are in the musical, and ideas that should have been obvious in the book but weren't were also in the musical. I made the mistake of getting this book to read all the details the musical didn't include.
Simply put, there are no details the musical doesn't include. Possible Spoilers: The foundation of the book is clever, but never developed: Elphaba is an outcast, made more so by her care for the Animals, the ones that can speak, that are being oppressed and worse. She gets hold of a magic book the Wizard can't read, and then proceeds to do nothing with it. Her relationship with Fiyaro, explained fully in the musical, is never explained in the book! Then there are the long, rambling conversations that go nowhere and have no point.
I think the author as a child must have been subjected to long, rambling & meaningless (to him) conversations between family members at social gatherings, as this is how he perceives all such gatherings; as much talk about nothing, vague (and obtuse) reflections on the "nature" of good & evil, etc; he presents all the characters as ninnies in their incoherent discussions, except for the Witch who also participates, and inevitably is seen as a ninny too for participating in them. The author does this dozens (and I mean dozens) of times in his book. To what purpose? It's never explained. What starts as a sympathetic character eventually grates on the nerves as she is never deveoped, her motivations become flatter and flatter, explanations are never forthcoming, and she's seen as weak & ineffective throughout the whole book. If she's so helpless, why does the Wizard see her as a threat? That's never explained either. The dialogue between characters is stilted, disconnected, sometimes illogical to the point where you're shaking your head and putting the book down to spare yourself a headache, when what you want is an engrossing and uplifting read. This book is the opposite of engrossing; it's off-putting, and a continual trudge uphill to find something meaningful in it.
Ultimately, you lose patience and start thinking for yourself about the giant plot holes and contradictions. For me the most basic one became this: Here we have the Wizard, a powerless man magically but who has a lot of guards & spies. Then we have the Witch, a natural magician, in possession of a dangerous tome, as well as part of a huge underground rebellion. The Wizard simply kidnaps her lover's family, and the Witch has to beg on her knees, crying, to the Wizard to get them back, without ever using her powers or her connections to save them. Is this consistent with the character? Is this our brave & indomitable Witch? Should we care about her after this as a viable or even an effective character, since she is not the character described at the beginning of this novel? We understand she's going to be different than the Baum character, but she should at least be consistent in some way within this story. Also the "huge rebellion" is hugely meaningless, as it never succeeds in anything and simply disappears eventually, never mentioned again!
The book makes allusions to Nazi Germany in its persecution of the Animals. In this author's view, from what he has written, Hitler would never have been defeated; he would simply have gone on and on, without opposition, as any rebellion or resistence is futile. And what is the point then? The author doesn't make one; we are left then with the author's perspective that true evil once in power can never be defeated, only endured till it kills us. Whether the author intended it or not, that is the moral of this book. Is it worth slogging through hundreds of pages of disconnected characters and events to get to that charming point?
I can't call it a story, as ultimately, it isn't one -just disconnected scenes & rambling, pointless dialogue. He really should have read his own book before publishing it. I don't understand why the people he credits for "reading the book early" didn't point out these giant flaws, the fact that she never (I mean never) uses her powers, and that she never develops (nor does anyone else) after college. Nor do I understand the Publisher not pointing this out and requesting a decent rewrite. (Which frankly, I think would have been beyond his capacity as a beginning writer). What he needed was an experienced (and better) cowriter to flesh out and develop the characters, and eliminate all of the rambling that does not progress or add to the story.
If you care for this character, don't read the book; you'll get no insight as to her motivations, or anything else.
You'll actually stop sympathizing and caring about her character. See the musical instead. The person that wrote the book for the musical did a better job than the author did in writing the novel. The musical Wicked is far better than this author deserves for it to be, considering the source material.
The musical does the Witch justice; this book, I'm afraid, does just the opposite, both for the Witch, and its readers.
The misunderstood witch.... UNDERSTOOD!.......2007-10-05
What can I say about this book?
Only that it was a honorable classic. I was able to fully understand the madness of the infamous witch, her story corrected my thoughts. We were all lead to believe that Elphaba was hateful and despied poor Dorthey, but that was not the case according to Maguire's novel. As a little girl I asked myself why was she so wicked? and did she have a life before Dorthey's time? This book clearly gave me perspective in that matter. Elphaba's stormy, weird and excitable sexual relationship with Fiyero also mad me love this book, because who would think that The Wicked Witch of The West had sex? Maguire makes it loud and clear that she did and LOVED it!
Another creative part of this book was the description of Nessarose and Galinda. He allowed me to get a full review of the charaters of Oz. And as a child I was scared of Munchkinlanders and after reading this book I confired that I still am!
Filled with hidden messages and funny sexual acts Wicked turned out to be my most beloved book of this year (2007)
And I am off to Broadway to see the play...........
Wicked Wasted My Week.......2007-10-05
Wow was I disappointed in this book!!! Had heard great things about it and thought the concept would be interesting. It was the furthest thing from interesting and in fact was the worst book I've read since high school.
The plot rambles with most of the book irrelevant to the "story". Characters come and go with no direction. They pop up, seem interesting, then they go away without much explanation.
I am no author, but I think Maguire really missed out on creating a truly interesting story. Would be nice if someone else took a real crack at creating somthing intriguing.
Luckily I just borrowed the book from my sister. Don't waste your hard earned cash.
Book Description
California has always been our Shangri-la–the promised land of countless pilgrims in search of the American Dream. Now the Golden State’s premier historian, Kevin Starr, distills the entire sweep of California’s history into one splendid volume. From the age of exploration to the age of Arnold, this is the story of a place at once quintessentially American and utterly unique.
Arguing that America’s most populous state has always been blessed with both spectacular natural beauty and astonishing human diversity, Starr unfolds a rapid-fire epic of discovery, innovation, catastrophe, and triumph.
For generations, California’s native peoples basked in the abundance of a climate and topography eminently suited to human habitation. By the time the Spanish arrived in the early sixteenth century, there were scores of autonomous tribes were thriving in the region. Though conquest was rapid, nearly two centuries passed before Spain exerted control over upper California through the chain of missions that stand to this day.
The discovery of gold in January 1848 changed everything. With population increasing exponentially as get-rich-quick dreamers converged from all over the world, California reinvented itself overnight. Starr deftly traces the successive waves of innovation and calamity that have broken over the state since then–the incredible wealth of the Big Four railroad tycoons and the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906; the emergence of Hollywood as the world’s entertainment capital and of Silicon Valley as the center of high-tech research and development; the heroic irrigation and transportation projects that have altered the face of the region; the role of labor, both organized and migrant, in key industries from agriculture to aerospace.
Kevin Starr has devoted his career to the history of his beloved state, but he has never lost his sense of wonder over California’s sheer abundance and peerless variety. This one-volume distillation of a lifetime’s work gathers together everything that is most important, most fascinating, and most revealing about our greatest state.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent California history Resource.......2007-10-02
This book was absolutely wonderful for me, as a teaching student in California. I used it for a California History class that is a requirement for my teaching credential. I used this book not only for the class but for research papers as well. It is nicely detailed and the way the book was written is very beneficial to anyone education of the state.
A model of regional history, an enthusiastic recommendation.......2007-07-09
"California: A History" by the award winning historian Kevin Starr (Professor of History, University of Southern California - Los Angeles) is a comprehensive and thoroughly 'reader friendly' history of the state of California beginning with the Spanish Conquest in the early sixteenth century, through the achievement of statehood, to the impact of the gold rush of 1848, to the advent of the railroads, to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, to the emergence of Hollywood as the entertainment capital of the world, to the rise of Silicon Valley in the age of the computer. Professor Starr covers the role of labor (both unionized and migrant), key industries including agriculture and aerospace, California's contributions to the politics, economics, and culture of the nation. Superbly researched, written, and organized, "California: A History" is a model of regional history, an enthusiastic recommendation for school and community libraries, and could well serve as a template for other state and regional histories.
World's Fastest California Tour.......2007-07-05
I loved this fast train ride through history, enjoyed the ride from start to finish! Page after page, Starr's CALIFORNIA: A HISTORY is a continuous stream of stats, historical facts, human interest stories and anecdotes. I don't think he missed a thing, and he certainly included a lot of trivia and behind-the-scenes information that helped make sense of the events and situations that followed. All in all, Starr's fast-track style and wealth of information makes this a highly enjoyable read.
A quick .. too quick .. a read.......2007-06-27
This book just blazes along. It's a quick .. too quick .. a read. While the task of covering 250 years (or so) of California in 344 (small) pages is an impossible task, the result is a text that is superficial and that would be appropriate for a summary tourist guide.
I think Professor Starr knocked this one out in his sleep. His other works are much more valuable.
I would pass right by this volume and proceed directly to "California; An Interpretive History" by Rawls/Bean (now in its 8th Edition). For good reason, Rawls/Bean is the standard introductory survey to California history.
Sharry's California .......2007-05-14
I am a 5th generation Californian and I enjoyed this history very much. Thanks to the author.
Book Description
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.
Customer Reviews:
Mayflower.......2007-10-18
The history presented by Nathaniel Philbrick is very interesting and gives a person a more personable view of the Mayflower families and times (as well as of the Indians in New England). I found his information to be quite complete and filled in a lot of history that has not been published before that I know of.
Unraveling a Myth.......2007-10-18
" Wherever they first set foot on the American continent, it wasn't Plymouth, and it certainly wasn't Plymouth Rock. The first Thanksgiving (in 1621) was indeed attended by Indians as well as Pilgrims, but they didn't sit at the tidy table depicted in Victorian popular art; they "stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they clustered around outdoor fires, where the deer and birds turned on wooden spits and where pottages -- stews into which varieties of meats and vegetables were thrown -- simmered invitingly."
- Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick
How many of us grew up with myths about the Pilgrims and about the first Thanksgiving? We all believed that the Pilgrims and the Indians sat at a beautiful table laden with turkey, cranberries and all of the fixings. Not only was that not the case, they certainly didn't set foot on Plymouth Rock.
Philbrick puts these myths to rest. And he tells us about the beginning of our new country and what was the basis for its foundation. Our myths contained stories about Massasoit and Squanto, Bradford and Winslow and, of course, Miles Standish.
One of the major accounts in the book was that of the King Philip's War. We learned that it really did not have to be. Both sides could have developed solutions which respected the goodness in each other as well as the differences.
We learned about how the Indians were shipped off to foreign places during this war and were separated from all of their families and tribes....never to be heard from again (having been made slaves). Only a few ever made it back like Squanto, for example.
Philbrick discusses why the war occurred after so many years of peace and why the descendants of Massasoit and of Bradford and Winslow came to see things differently than their fathers; losing sight of the faith and the respect for the individual that their forefathers had long revered. They also blocked out the memory of how they all needed one another to survive.
The Mayflower Compact, we learn, is one document that laid the foundations for the country that America was to become. Yet, our forefathers had to live through a nightmare of a war (of their own making) where both sides suffered tremendously. It took many years after the war ended to ever recoup even a portion of what was lost.
Philbrick's book is a story of courage, community and war on both sides as well as a story of how our forefathers lost sight of what the Indians had done for their ancestors and their fathers and what was owed to these people. In doing so, they also lost sight of the need for diplomacy and how to work together to come up with solutions that would be good for both the settlers as well as the Indians.
MAYFLOWER has won many awards and the book deserves all of them. What I have come away with deals first with the myth. This was unraveled for me so that I could understand and gain knowledge of the facts of these early settlements. I learned what worked, what didn't work and why the peaceful compact fell apart. I also learned that we can gain a lot from understanding our past and that we do not have to make the same mistakes over again.
Nathaniel Philbrick has given us hope that our future does not always have to resemble our past. He wrote, "When violence and fear grip a society, there is an almost overpowering temptation to demonize the enemy. But some on both sides refused to succumb. They were the ones whose rambunctious and intrinsically rebellious faith in humanity finally brought the war to an end, and they are the heroes of this story."
During the times that we face now, our heroes can continue to be those leaders and citizens who strive to focus on the faith in humanity and celebrate our differences as well as our similarities finding solutions rather than reasons to turn away from each other.
Four Stars: B+ (Recommend Highly)
Bentley/2007
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War
Not what I was hoping for.......2007-10-13
I couldn't get into this book because it was very different from what I thought it would be. I expected "Mayflower" to be a detailed account of why the pilgrims decided to journey to America, and also a vivid description of what life aboard the Mayflower was actually like. The book did cover those things, but only for a few short pages. Most of the book is devoted to the history of Plymouth Colony and King Philip's War. Author Nataniel Philbrick does an excellent job of shooting down the myths many people believe about what the pilgrim settlement was actually like, but I was much more interested in reading about the actual Mayflower journey and was disappointed that so little information about that event was included in this 400+ page book. "Mayflower" should be called "King Philip's War" so readers know what they're getting into.
Educational book.......2007-09-26
This is a very informative, accurate writing of our history. More people should read and know the real history of our country.
Not what I expected, but.......2007-09-16
the book was still a captivating piece of literature. I read this directly after reading In the Heart of the Sea by Philbrick, and was expecting the same type of story. That was not the case however. The title is a bit misleading in that one thinks they are going to be reading (or at least I did) a story of the journey. The subtitle should have cued me in. The book is about the struggle between the settlers and the natives more so than it is about the voyage to the new world. All that being said, I still loved the book. I gave the book four stars because I wish there was more about the actual voyage, and I think the title is a little misleading. All in all though, it is a superb piece of literature.
Average customer rating:
- Great Coffee Table Book
- Great book for my overseas guests
- Nice Review of Past and Present
- flawed but fun Chicago historical pictorial
- A look at old Chicago
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Chicago Then and Now (Then & Now)
Elizabeth McNulty
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ASIN: 1571452788 |
Book Description
The latest installment in the popular Then and Now series showcases the capital of the Heartland and one of the premier cities in the nation and the world: Chicago. Chicago's change and growth over the last century is captured in this photographic history. Modern color photos sit side by side with black and white archival photographs. Every important building, avenue, neighborhood, and point of interest is documented. It covers all of Chicago's landmarks from Navy Pier to the Stockyards and from the Southside all the way up the Magnificent Mile. Take in a game at Wrigley Field, then take it all in from the top of the Sear's Tower. The Water Tower and all the other architectural features that make Chicago great are also included.
Customer Reviews:
Great Coffee Table Book.......2007-04-11
Great pictures on every page of this wonderful book. Only Chicagoans will appreciate it however. The photos are large and grand, and the author has tried hard to recreate the original angle mostly. That's my only complaint. Lovely book.
Great book for my overseas guests.......2004-11-20
I have purchased this book for my departing aupair's for the past several years. While they certainly take pictures themselves they would never have a collection of photographs this large and they also get to see a bit of the history of Chicago. There are a lot of good pictures that will certainly spark many happy memories. For this purpose I would recommend it.
Nice Review of Past and Present.......2003-09-15
I enjoyed this book. Some of the pictures do not compare well because they were taken at different angles or from a different side of the street. Nevertheless, this is a great book. I found lots of stuff to compare. Native Chicagoans, who take an interest in the city, will like it. I purchased it for my brother for Christmas...liked it so much I purchased one for myself.
flawed but fun Chicago historical pictorial.......2003-02-13
I have several of these "then and now" books, and I would say this is the weakest of the bunch. I dearly love Chicago, and some of the old photographs were very interesting, but the book has a few problems. First, the photographic perspectives are rarely in synch, so it is difficult to compare the two pictures directly; either the angle is off to the side, or it's at a different distance. This seems rather to defeat the purpose of a "then and now" theme, which is to facilitate comparison. Secondly, a great many of the buildings and scenes are virtually identical to what they were, so one wonders why they were included. Finally, a map should have been included.
On the positive side, many of Chicago's key spots are targeted, such as the Water Tower, the stockyards and Hull House, and the paragraphs that accompany each picture do convey a lot of interesting information.
If you are interested in Chicago or urban history you will undoubtedly still enjoy this volume, but lower your expectations a bit before the book arrives so you won't be disappointed.
A look at old Chicago.......2002-01-21
An interesting look at Chicago as it appeared in the past, compared to now. More than just a picture book, it also gives some historical perspective for each location. If you're a Chicagoan, this is a must have. There are two problems that keep this from getting a top ranking. First, the focus of a "then and now" book should be to compare and contrast, so we can see how much has changed. There's several locations shown here that haven't really changed, and you wonder why they were included. Also, the "then" and "now" pictures should be shot from roughly the same location, showing the same perspective. That's not always the case here, and you may have to spend some time figuring out how to get things lined up. Still, it's a good way to see how the city used to look, and a rare look at some of the now-missing architectural treasures.
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