A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World | Tony Horwitz

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World | Tony Horwitz | Excellent Read!!!!

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A Voyage Long and ...

	A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World Tony Horwitz Henry Holt and Co., 2008 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 36 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Lively Interpretation

Tony Horwitz has hoisted the sails full mast in this very readable and investigative work on rediscovering America's beginnings.

For generations many of us have been duped into believing that Columbus discovered America and the Pilgrims were the first to settle this land. So, what did actually happen before Plymouth in 1620?

The author painstakingly traveled thousands of miles in the footsteps of the Vikings (circa 1000AD), Columbus (1492), the early Spanish conquistadors Ponce de Leon, de Vaca, de Soto and Coronado (1513-1542), the unsuccessful attempt of Fort Caroline by the French during the 1560's which lead to the eventual founding of America's oldest settlement St. Augustine by the Spanish, the failed English colony at Roanoke during the 1580's and culminating with Jamestown (1607) and Plymouth (1620).

What makes this approach to history a fun read is Horowitz' interviews with the hundreds of local people from the Northeast, to the Southeast, to the Southwestern areas of the United States. People certainly have their own opinions about their immediate environs and it shines through.
As stated in the final pages...oftentimes myth trumps fact in history. Embellishment and fabrication make for an intriguing story to fit one's own views.

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Excellent Read!!!!

As a student of American history and prehistory for many years, I had to read this book after reading the reviews! Am I glad that I did...... The Spanish presence is underreported in North America though that has been changing as sites are discovered and archaologically investigated. Few know that Jamestown Fort was built not in response to any Native American threat but rather because of a potential Spanish threat. This book is well researched and highly readable taking the reader on the stark trek of historic reality debunking the "nice" stories that we learned from school textbooks. I also purchased Mr. Horwitz's One for the Road and am reading that book as I write this review. I have had his Confederates in the Attic in my library for several years which I originally purchased since I have met the reenactor on the cover on several occasions. That is the next book on my reading list. Kudos to Tony Horwitz, his books are worth joining him on his trips of discovery.

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"Myth trumps fact, always does, always has, always will."

Tony Horwitz says that he set on the course of researching and writing A VOYAGE LONG AND STRANGE because of his own ignorance of not really knowing what happened between Columbus's landfall in the New World in 1492 and the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock in 1620. Generations of children come away from school believing the Pilgrims were the first at everything and everything was really cozy with the Indians at the first Thanksgiving. A visit to what looks like a dimpled potato or, as a tourist is overheard to remark, "The Plymouth Pebble," ignited curiosity about the old stories. Off went Horwitz on his own voyage long and strange.

I came to this history not quite as ignorant as Horwitz. I vacation at the Outer Banks, so I know about the Lost Colony (1587). In my baby boomer education at a progressive public school, I soaked up the stories of the conquistadors' explorations in search of riches. I partly grew up around in the vicinity of old missions in California, I've read DEATH COMES TO THE ARCHBISHOP, which places rogue European priests in the southwest almost since Columbus, and Nancy Marie Brown's recent THE FAR TRAVELER, about the Vikings, in addition to books on archeology and other histories for general readers. While I may have been ahead of Horwitz at the get go, he ended up with a lot of surprises for me, not the least of them in his contemporary travels of the historical sites.

This is a thumping good read; I could not put it down to which people who know me will testily attest. Horwitz is a fine writer and knows where and how to go for a story. He does have a penchant for the self-punishing adventures---he endures a Native American Indian sweat lodge, excruciating Caribbean heat, and hefty chain mail at a 16th century re-enactment in Florida heat, all for his art and knowledge. He is often funny, but the truth that emerges is not. In his research and travels, we find the roots of many of our society's contemporary divides and preoccupations. Though he never says it exactly, I find the truth he uncovers has very ancient roots: the Conquistadors arrive wearing armor and helmets and wielding brutality straight out of Roman and Medieval Europe; the ethos of might is right is out of those times, too. Modernity may have propelled Columbus but it took a back seat once he arrived this side of the pond. It took a long time for colonists to learn how to live on this continent, which took different skills than it required to live in Europe; and, apparently, we're still figuring it out.

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History lost but not forgotten

Like the author said "None of us were taught this stuff".. refreshingly conversational and interesting history lesson about the 100 years that are a missing link in our American History lessons. If you like history, this is worth the read

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8

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