A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World
by Tony Horwitz
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Book Summary Information
Author: Tony HorwitzEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-29
ISBN: 0805076034
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Book Reviews of A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World
Book Review: "Myth trumps fact, always does, always has, always will."
Summary: 5 Stars
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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