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

ALA Notable Book Winner, 2006

Booklist Editor's Choice, 2006

Chicago Tribune Best Books of 2006

New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, 2006

Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year - Adult, 2006

Pulitzer Prize Finalist - History, 2007

San Francisco Chronicle Best Books, 2006

Washington Post Best Books of 2006

"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)

Great Read

Wish I would have had a map and chart of people and tribes in front of me. A little hard to follow all the details through an audio version.

Great history

This reminds me that mankind ever rises above hardship as well as ever seeks to take from others their lands, authority and uniqueness.

Amazing history!

We’ll worth listening to! The amazing unexpected twists of fate and chance that is part of the foundation and core of our nation.

🙏

What a wonderful, and meticulous, piece of research! This opens our eyes a bit to what really happened. A great book to have in a library.

More than a journey across the sea

An interesting and detailed story of the Mayflower - but really much more about the first 40 years on this soil. Intersting descriptions of the first landing in Provincetown and then how the ship moved along the Cape shore untimately ending in Plymouth. But that is really only the first 1/3 of the book. Long descriptions of the relationship with native americans and frankly not always a very positive view of how the puritans treated the "indians" or of the numerous wars. The King Phillip War descriptions are lenghty - possibly too long. Worth the read.

Fascinating and Disturbing

The Pilgrims' story is mythologized but I don't believe the facts are widely known. I found the story of the Mayflower and subsequent settlement of the area to be fascinating. The back half of the book covers the next few decades and includes King Phillip's was and other conflicts with the native people. As someone with Mayflower ancestors, the narrative was deeply disturbing and on occasions I resorted to turning the sound off. If you know little about this period in US history, don't miss this one.

Amazing forgotten history

The Mayflower was just the start of this book. It goes on to explain the following decades and the ultimate conversion of the settlement into current Massachusetts. It goes in depth into parts of America's history which are not really discussed in history classes. The settler and Indian relationships were much more complex than I ever thought.

Better title - King Phillip's War

A good account of the early days of the New England colonies with a focus on the descendants of the Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower and their subsequent interactions with the indigenous Indian tribes. Title is misleading. Should have been titled King Phillip's War, one of the bloodiest wars in American history, since that is its focus. Book is balanced and paints an equally honest, and often unflattering, portrait of some of the Pilgrim and Indian leaders of the time.

a side of the pilgrims you never learned about

read this at the thanksgiving table. horrific details about native American and pilgrim battles. sobering.

Another Philbrick Classic

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Though not quite as good as "In the Heart of the Sea", Mayflower was captivating and interesting on it's own. I read this book years ago and found the Audible version just as good. I'm fascinated by history and learning the history on how the country was inhabited and then the facts behind the first Thanksgiving is captivating.

Some parts seem a bit slow but not for lack of detail or character background and development. I'm glad I took the time to re-read, or rather re-hear this story.