Mayflower

A Story of Courage, Community, and War

By: Nathaniel Philbrick

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

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 best-selling 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 55-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.

©2006 Nathaniel Philbrick (P)2006 Penguin Audio, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., and Recorded Books, LLC. All rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Impeccably researched and expertly rendered, Philbrick's account brings the Plymouth Colony and its leaders...vividly to life. More importantly, he brings into focus a gruesome period in early American history." (Publishers Weekly)

"Startling [and] fascinating." (The New York Times)

far more information

I was impressed that this went as far past the landing as it did. History in school just discusses the actual landing and rarely discusses the issues and war that followed and set the standard for Euro /Native American interactions for the next 200 years.

Fascinating!

I grew up in the areas of Fall River, Mt Hope, Newport, and Portsmouth. My mother told me very briefly about King Philip's War when I asked her as a child who King Philip was and why there was a street named after him. Beyond that, and a few visits to Plymouth Plantation to see how the Pilgrims lived, I knew almost nothing of this amazing history. As the story was told, I could see in my mind the exact banks of the rivers, the view to the other side where canoes would have put in, and other scenes described. I didn't want the book to end. Thank you, thank you for such an amazing story!! Beautifully told!!

Every US citizen needs to read this

As a native New Englander, this piece answers so many holes that are untold in this area. It is an absolute must read and Philbrick illustrates it beautifully.

Mayflower a Great audio book

I really enjoyed this book, the narrator really kept my attention and the contents of the book kept my attention.

awe-inspiring history but mistitled

This book covers a century. It has a large cast of historical figures, but not too large. I feel it focuses much less on the history of the Mayflower, and much more of the relations between the Indians and the Mayflower settlers and their descendents. It highlights both the day-to-day curiousities of the relationships, and makes me wonder how things could have been different. If you are looking for a book on the Mayflower, here instead is a great book about King Philip's War.

Fantastic

Just what I was looking for. A well documented and well researched story about the Mayflower with a very good reader. Highly recommend.

Great Book and research

This was such a good book to listen to. The narrator was great. Since my family on both sides of my Mother's family came to America in the mid 1600 and my family on my Dad's side were from American Indian decent, this was really interesting. It really gives an appreciation for what people went through to form this country in the beginning. It wasn't perfect either then, but nothing is perfect until we get to heaven. It does though tell us that they didn't give up and they had much more strength than we do now. Too bad we are so complacent and whine too much about what we don't have instead of being thankful for what we do have.

Freedom through tragedy

The author takes us through a full history of the reasons the separatists and pilgrims and various groups chose to leave their native land to sail for the American continent.

I really enjoyed this book and wish it would have been something available when studying the founding of the country when I was in grade school junior high or high school. Granted it would be beyond the scope of a normal class to get through all of these details, but it’s also a good lesson as to how history gets revised and forgotten completely because there is only a feeble attempt by Americans today to understand the full context of how and why our country was ultimately settled and conquered/founded by Europeans. And that conquering portion is an important detail. But not in the way that many current day Americans loathe the country that they live in. These people are so self-centered they cannot appreciate all of the beauty and ugliness that needed to take place to bring us to present day America. So therefore they only focus on one aspect at the expense of appreciating what they have today in their ability to complain nonstop about how the native Americans were killed, robbed and otherwise mistreated.

It is absolutely tragic that the indigenous Indians were treated fairly -or even as humans- as the continent begin to attract more European settlers. But the fact remains this is part of the bloody, ugly portion of our country‘s history that needs to be told and heard and internalized. The irony and possibly dual irony of the founding mainly happen because Christians were being persecuted in their home countries and decided to risk everything they had to move to a new place where they could worship freely and in doing so ultimately betrayed their Christian beliefs in the pursuit of money and land and worldly possessions. And this was ultimately done at the expense of the lives & livelihood of the native Americans.

I also found a very fascinating be back-and-forth from peace to hate to peace and hate -fighting and friendship and friendship and fighting -that took place between Original inhabitants and the Interlopers. Just seemed like a very balanced account of white both sides thought of one another how they interacted and the good bad and ugly of the various encounters including double dealings. It wasn’t all white man bad and it was an all red man bad. There’s no doubt though even with this account the European settlers created much of the ill will and propensity to war because of their behavior and suspiciousness. I also track a certain amount of their attitude towards desperation. Especially the very early generation of settlers who were treated so poorly by their country man or fellow Europeans who took complete advantage of them.

I would also say that is an excellent epilogue it goes into more detail on really how the author thinks the American character was created out of these instances. I think he makes a very strong case for why America is the way it is and why it has such a pioneering spirit and will figure it out and The end justifies the means in which we accomplish things that no other countries seem to be able to do. Similar to the Winston Churchill quote United States will exhaust all options before stumbling upon the right one. Or something to that effect.

The The reader for this audiobook did an excellent job and reminds me of the mini voice artist at work on other documentaries for history channel type programs. Just a very pleasant and articulate voice to listen to for me. I would definitely listen to more books if they were historical in nature if this was there the reader.

Mayflower

Finally an accurate account of the Pilgrim and Indians . It appears the true savages were the Pilgrims decendents. Greed began what became the excuse for slavery. The reader is one of my favorites ,he could make reading the dictionary interesting. On to more NPhilbrick listening!

A new look at "familiar" American history

The Pilgrims of Plimoth Plantation are part of the founding mythology of the US. But what most of us know, or at least remember, is Plymouth Rock, Thanksgiving, the Puritans, and then the Revolution. Maybe we remember that King Philip's War is a thing that happened, but we may be a bit hazy on the details. Probably we remember Squanto, the friendly Indian who taught the Pilgrims to grow corn.

Philbrick brings in all marvelously to life.

And in doing so, he restores the richness, complexity, and ambiguity of the real world.

The arrival of the Pilgrims wasn't the first contact New England Indians had with Europeans--and those earlier contacts had brought diseases the Native Americans had no previous encounter with. What had been a thickly settled region was now startlingly empty, with many whole villages wiped out diseases that killed so many there weren't enough healthy people to care for the sick. There was, in fact, room for the Pilgrims--if they could learn to live with their neighbors, and their neighbors could learn to live with them.

Philbrick gives us the fascinating tale of how, for fifty years, the Pilgrims and the local Indian tribes, most notably the Pokanoket, under the leadership of Massasoit, built an often uneasy but mutually beneficial working relationship that benefited all the groupings involved. We see the ways the Indians and the English influenced each other, learned from each other, and helped each other.

And then we see how it all broke down, first under Massasoit's older son, Alexander, and then his younger son, Philip--as well as the sons and grandsons of the English founders, including Josiah Winslow, William Bradford, Benjamin Church, and others--engaged in a cascading series of poor decisions, failures of diplomacy, and failures to communicate.

All the peoples and cultures involved were more complex and interesting than the standard version, and that includes the Pilgrims, the Massachusetts Bay colony,and the different Indian tribes.

Highly recommended.

I bought this book.