Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #717 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-29
• Released on: 2008-04-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 464 pages

From Publishers Weekly
SignatureReviewed by Robert Sullivan. As opposed to the Pilgrims, Tony Horwitz begins his journey at Plymouth Rock.Plymouth Rock is a myth. The Pilgrims—who, Horwitz notes, were on a mission that was based less on freedom and the schoolbook history ideas the president of the United States typically mentions when he pardons a turkey at the White House and more on finding a cure for syphilis—may or may not have noticed it. In about 1741, a church elder in Plymouth, winging it, pointed out a boulder that is now more like a not-at-all-precious stone. Three hundred years later, people push and shove to see it in summer tourist season, wearing T-shirts that say, America's Hometown. Which eventually leads an overstimulated (historically speaking) Horwitz to come close to starting a fight in a Plymouth bar. Not to Virginians it isn't, he writes. Or Hispanics or Indians.Forget all the others, his bar mate says loudly. This is the friggin' beginning of America!A Voyage Long and Strange is a history-fueled, self-imposed mission of rediscovery, a travelogue that sets out to explore the surprisingly long list of explorers who discovered America, and what discovered means anyway, starting with the Vikings in A.D. 1000, and ending up on the Mayflower. Horwitz (Blue Latitudes; Confederates in the Attic) even dons conquistador gear, making the narrative surprisingly fun and funny, even as he spends a lot of time describing just how badly Columbus and subsequently the Spanish treated people. (Highpoint: a trip to a Columbus battle site in the Dominican Republic, when Horwitz gets stuck with a nearly inoperable rental car in a Sargasso Sea of traffic.) In the course of tracing the routes of de Soto in, for instance, Tennessee, and the amazing Cabeza de Vaca (Daniel Day Lewis's next role?) in Tucson, Ariz., Horwitz drives off any given road to meet the back-to-the-land husband-and-wife team researching Coronado's expeditions through Mexico; or the Fed Ex guy who may be a link to the lost colonists of the Elizabethan Roanoke expedition.Horwitz can occasionally be smug about what constitutes custom—who's to say that a Canadian tribe's regular karaoke night isn't a community-building exercise as valid as the communal sweat that nearly kills Horwitz early on in his thousands of miles of adventures? But as a character himself, he is friendly and always working hard to listen and bear witness. I hate the whole Thanksgiving story, says a newspaper editor of Spanish descent, a man he meets along the trail of Coronado. We should be eating chili, not turkey. But no one wants to recognize the Spanish because it would mean admitting that they got here decades before the English.Robert Sullivan is the author of Cross Country, How Not to Get Rich and Rats .
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The New York Times Book Review
"Funny and lively. . . Popular history of the most accessible sort.... The stories Horwitz tells are full of vivid characters and wild detail."

Review

"Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Horwitz has presented what could be described as a guide for those who are historically ignorant of the “lost century” between the first voyage of Columbus and the establishment of Jamestown in 1607. In this informative, whimsical, and thoroughly enjoyable account, Horwitz describes the exploits of various explorers and conquistadores and enriches the stories with his own experiences when visiting some of the lands they “discovered.” Horwitz writes in a breezy, engaging style, so this combination of popular history and travelogue will be ideal for general readers.—Booklist (starred review)

“Irreverent, effervescent… accessible to all ages, hands-on and immensely readable, this book invites readers to search out America ’s story for themselves.”—Kirkus Reviews

“This readable and vastly entertaining history travelogue is highly recommended.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Funny and lively…popular history of the most accessible sort.  The stories [Horwitz] tells are full of vivid characters and wild detail.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A romp through the sixteenth century….  Horwitz has an ear for a good yarn and an instinct for the trail leading to an entertaining anecdote.”—The Washington Post

“Honest, wonderfully written, and heroically researched….  Horwitz unearths whole chapters of American history that have been ignored.”—Boston Globe

“Like travel writer Bill Bryson, Horwitz has a penchant for meeting colorful characters and getting himself into bizarre situations.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“A sweeping history.…  A fascinating story, filled with adventure, Vikings, French voyageurs and those Pilgrims.”—The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Horwitz is a very funny writer.”—Bloomberg News

“A winning and eye-opening read.…  Horwitz’s charm, smarts, impeccable research and curiosity make this a voyage worth taking.”—The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

“By conveying our past so heartily, handsomely and winsomely, Tony Horwitz does America proud.”—The Providence Journal

Customer Reviews

The Other Side of the Coin
This at least shows the fact that the origins of the USA's civilization is in the South. Spanish-speaking St. Augustine in Florida was the first European settlement, in 1565. The first-ever democratic elections in America were held in the Jamestown colony in 1607, etc. Because the North won the Civil War, they have written the history text books, which make it sound like Plymouth Rock was the cradle of the American nation. When in fact, the beginings of African-America were already one year in the past when the Pilgrims landed in New England, as African indentured servants landed on the Virginia coast in 1619. I am please to find Horwitz revealing the truth about this. I have not gotten there yet, but I am assuming he also credits the existence of the United States to the charity and patriotism of a Jew named Hayem Salomon; this man was an immigrant in New York from Poland, who bacame the wealthiest man in the Anglo-American colonies before 1775. Without his dedication and pocket book Continental Congress would not have had the resources to finance the Revolutionary War. In the middle of the 1780s, Salomon died penniless in a poor flat in New York. Congress never paid him back the vast fortune he contributed. But in recent years Congress did authorize the issue of a postage stamp bearing his likeness.

A Fine, Funny, Thoughtful Voyage
A really interesting look (and at times very funny) at the odd blank spot in American history between Columbus and Jamestown, especially odd since so much actually happened during that time; Coronado, Soto, the first European colony in the US at Fort Caroline (founded by French Huguenots and now Jacksonville, which was founded later after the colony was massacred by the Spanish). Also very thoughtful at times about a nation's memory and why we revere the jerks at Plymouth Bay Colony rather than any of their predecessors (who weren't exactly saints either).

A forgotten historical time
For those who loved Confederates In The Attic, Tony Horwitz once again travels back into time, following the paths of Vikings, conquistadors and settlers. The main theme is the black hole Americans have of the time between Columbus and the Pilgrims, a not insignificant period of 128 years in which much occurred. Names like Coronado and DeSoto were just names in history books to many people, even well educated ones like Horwitz himself.

Horwitz writes about the historical misconceptions and other tidbits of this time which surround not only the explorers (Ponce de Leon was not in search of a fountain of youth, he never set foot in St. Augustine either) but also the natives (many Indian societies were scattered and loose confederations by the 16th century as opposed to their greater, more prosperous nations in centuries previous).

Some interesting moments in the book:

- Horwitz rightly condemns the lack of proper historical presentation in our time, for example St. Augustine turned into a Ponce de Leon theme park complete with pirates and the new pox of dumbed-down history, ghost tours.

- Regardless of the cruelty and single-minded gold mania of the conquistadors, Horwitz marvels at how they managed to march through inhospitable regions like the desert southwest and the swampy southeast. As for the atrocities they committed, there are many examples here. Still, Horwitz speaks to defenders of their legacy as well.

- Interesting modern day people and places abound: The Kansas Swedish Lutheran town situated at the Spanish Catholic Coronado's furthest exploration north. How the flooding of the Mississippi over the decades destroyed once-prosperous towns like Arkansas City, now a near-vacant settlement. The chaos of the modern Dominican Republic.

- The squandered legacy of the Vikings who failed to make inroads into the New World.

- The first Indian who met the Pilgrims spoke English and asked for beer. The Pilgrims weren't close to being the first people to settle on the east coast of the U.S.

Much more here, written in Horwitz's generally objective and inquisitive style. His trips to historical spots give a lot of modern day perspective. As with his other books, his visits to such places are met with either genuine interest or indifference.

Most of all, Horwitz engages the reader, regardless of political leaning. Contrast this to a book like Assassination Nation by Sarah Vowell, which could have been an excellent book but is poisoned by her bitter partisan rants. For all we know Horwitz could share a similar political viewpoint but he keeps an even-handed approach in this book.