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A Voyage Long and Strange
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A Voyage Long and Strange
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A Voyage Long and Strange
Audiobook (abridged)8 hours

A Voyage Long and Strange

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this audiobook

On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz makes an unsettling discovery. A history buff since early childhood, expensively educated at university-a history major, no less!-he's reached middle age with a third-grader's grasp of early America. In fact, he's mislaid more than a century of American history, the period separating Columbus's landing in 1492 from the arrival of English colonists at Jamestown in 160-something. Did nothing happen in between?

Horwitz decides to find out, and in A Voyage Long and Strange he uncovers the neglected story of America's founding by Europeans. He begins a thousand years ago, with the Vikings, and then tells the dramatic tale of conquistadors, castaways, French voyageurs, Moorish slaves, and many others who roamed and rampaged across half the states of the present-day U.S. continent, long before the Mayflower landed.

To explore this history and its legacy in the present, Horwitz embarks on an epic quest of his own-trekking in search of grape-rich Vinland, Ponce de León's Fountain of Youth, Coronado's Cities of Gold, Walter Raleigh's Lost Colonists, and other mysteries of early America. And everywhere he goes, Horwitz probes the revealing gap between fact and legend, between what we enshrine and what we forget.

An irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to rediscover the New World for ourselves.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 29, 2008
ISBN9780739317242
Unavailable
A Voyage Long and Strange

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Rating: 3.8811610144927537 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The settlement of North America by Europeans did not begin with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. A whole lot of exploration and settlement took place before that, and all this is the subject of a fascinating book by Tony Horwitz, “A Voyage Long and Strange” (2008).Americans make a big deal about the Pilgrims, but Horwitz wanted to know about those explorers and settlers who came before. He wanted to, as much as possible centuries later, walk in their footsteps and see what they saw.It is not a pretty picture, which may be why most Americans, including most American history teachers, choose to ignore it, or at least gloss over it. By 21st century standards, these were not nice people. They lusted after gold. They robbed, raped, enslaved and massacred the native people they encountered. They didn't even behave kindly toward their own people, as in the case of the Roanoke settlers who were abandoned.Horwitz begins with the Vikings, who explored and founded short-lived settlements in the northeastern regions of the continent around the year 1000, then turns to Christopher Columbus, who succeeded "because he was so stubbornly wrong." He died believing he had found a new route to India. After that Horwitz examines such explorers at DeLeon and DeSoto and the settlements in St. Augustine and Jamestown.But Horwitz looks not just at the past but also at the present. He travels to places that may (or in some cases may not) have been visited by these people, looks for remnants of their time there and talks with both scholars and people who now live in these areas to get their take on the past. Much of this is written in the manner of Bill Bryson, full of information presented in a wry and whimsical way.As important as history may be, Horwitz concludes by stating that myth may be more important. It feels good to ignore a "monstrous man" like DeSoto and failed settlements where so many people died and focus instead on myths about Pilgrims. (They weren't called Pilgrims until many years later, they had a feast but didn't make a big deal out of it, the Indians were uninvited guests, they probably ate venison and fish but not turkey, etc.) As journalists like to say in jest, why let the facts get in the way of a good story?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Like most US citizens my age, I was taught a rather vague history of our country in which Columbus proved that the world wasn't flat by discovering America, which, after an inexplicable gap of some 130 years, was settled by pilgrims on a quest for religious freedom. I suppose it is because we are so young when we are taught this, and because it is repeated ad nauseam throughout our lives, that we never question this rather bizarre narrative.In a book that is part travelogue , part history, and part social commentary on our modern relationship with that history, Tony Horwitz examines the European explorations which preceded Columbus and continues up to the arrival of the pilgrims. He tells not the story we are most commonly told of an unending series of back-to-back successes by brave explorers, but rather the fuller and more accurate story of invaders who suffered many losses before they finally conquered an already occupied land. In the process, he corrects many of the most enduring yet fallacious myths regarding the occupation of the "new world" and gives us in exchange a more honest history and a richer understanding of who we are today.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I thought the conclusion of the book made a profound point--profound to me anyway. I had thought of the book as a more entertaining approach to the same type of material I had read in Mann's 1491 and 1493, but there aren't strong similarities. I found all three of the books mentioned very rewarding.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great book of real history. So much we as Americans learned in school are half truths and outright fabrications. Refreshing to hear the true and amazing story Horowitz gives here. Highly recommend.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Excellent details on the early explorers and settlers in America. Very interesting and I recommend this.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An interesting and practically unknown history of early American exploration that begins with Vikings and ends with landing of the Pilgrims. This is the history that modern Americans have chosen to forget. It becomes clear as the book unfolds that much of popular history is just myth-making and carefully massaged facts. Americans have chosen to remember what most appeals to them and discard, sometimes vehemently, anything and everything else.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I liked this one, my student did not. I think the author has a sort of Bill Bryson tone. It might be better utilized as an audiobook.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When the author realized he didn't really know anything about European history in America between Columbus and Jamestown, he decided to go looking. I had a similar hole in my education, so it was fun to join him on the journey. From the Vikings through Columbus, the Conquistadors, the French, and the early English, this book covers a whole lot of events rarely discussed in elementary school. There is, of course, a whole lot of barging in on native people and slaughtering them wholesale, but it's not all dark. In fact, some of it is quite pleasant, and there's even a fair bit of humor. Recommended.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    65. A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World (audio book) by Tony Horwitz (who also narrated), (2008, 464 pages in paper from, Listened Dec 2-10)My latest audio. It was only OK. A great idea that somehow wasn't as entertaining as it should have been.Horwitz covers the pre-Pilgrim history of North America exploration, while interviewing serious historian, reenactors, oddballs obsessers, etc. It should be a fun mixture of historical trivia and entertaining interviews. He covers the Vikings, Columbus, Ponce de Leon, Coronado, de Soto, Roanoke Island, Jamestown and finally Plymouth. I didn't know de Soto reached the Savannah river, or that his brief visit marks the end of Indian civilization through that region.But I never fully enjoyed the book. First of all Horwitz reads somehow wrong. He sounds like he is reading prose, or maybe like a reporter reading shocking news while trying to maintain impartiality. Anyway, I thought the tone was dour. Also the structure doesn't fully work. The history-to-interview-to-history-to-next-topic seems to abbreviate everything and drag it out at the same time. It got old, and by the end I was getting impatient for it finish.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very interesting account of tvarious european groups that came and went in the America's. Horowitz goes from place telling stories of vikings, conquistadors, french and english in a dramatic, sometimes sad (he doesn't hide massacres against the Indians) and always interesting way.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Everything I have read by Tony Horwitz so far has been extremely enjoyable. This is the book that turned me on to his storytelling abilities
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Staggered by his lack of knowledge about the discovery of America, Horwitz travels around and interviews scholars, historians, and ordinary people about the Vikings, Columbus, the Conquistadors, the Native Americans, and the Pilgrims, trying to separate myth from history. Easy to read and informative as well as hilariously funny.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was an interesting ramble through early European ventures into North America, with an occasionally whiny tour guide.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While American history doesn't interest me as much as other areas, I found much to interest me in this engagingly written book. If nothing else, I found out that a tool to dig out solid stools in the heavily constipated has a name.I will be including other titles by Mr Horwitz on my to-read list and for me that is the highest accolade I can give to a writer.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another Horowitz travelogue/history, this time tracing the roots of North American advancement across the continent. He visits archaeological and modern sites as he relates the tales of these European expeditions that explored, mapped, and sometimes settled on a new and exciting continent in the 16th century from discovery in 1492( or earlier) to permanent settlement in 1606.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really like books that teach without making me feel like I'm reading a textbook, and this book did that very well. The author traveled around to explore the various scenes where explorers set foot in America, from the time of the Vikings in 1000 AD, to Columbus, on up to Jamestown and the Pilgrims. This is a great book if you like history and don't know much about what happened in America before the Pilgrims. Although it mostly focuses on European history in America, there is also a great deal of information about Native Americans and their encounters.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Maybe because I remember a lot of what I learned in school about early European exploration of the Americas, this book just was not as interesting to me as the other Tony Horwitz books I have read. As always, he contrasts history with contemporary attitudes toward the past and that exploration, too, was not as interesting as in "Confederates in the Attic" or "Blue Latitudes". If you feel you need a quick course on Viking settlements in North America and on the Spanish explorations and conquests, this is probably the book for you. It just wasn't for me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this travelogue through the pre-history of the Americas. I don't have any kind of connection to American identity, being Canadian, but I really enjoyed learning more about the explorers and people who were on this continent before the stories we all know.This book was very readable, and very interesting. Definitely recommended reading.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It's rare that you see an historical travel narrative that takes into account the importance of historical myth as a parallel to historical fact. Horwitz, however, manages to do so in this volume. His analysis runs from the Vikings who still felt hafvalla, lost at sea, even when they landed in Newfoundland, to the Spanish, who crossed vast tracts of the Americas before the English even settled, and changed the landscape in ways that we now cannot even begin to imagine. Alongside all this, however, he manages to present the myths of America's discovery and founding, both for U.S. and Canadian audiences, in a way that does not invalidate them against the historic narrative, but instead incorporates them and explains their import in a way that is respectful of both fact and legend.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sometimes plodding, Horwitz always has enough sideline material to keep things interesting. Careful historian.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Did Columbus redally discover the New world? Did the pilgrims really step ashore at Plymouth Rock to found the first permanent colony in what would become the United States? Was Ponce de Leon really searching for the fountain of youth? These are lessons that are learned by every American schoolchild, and are an integral part of the fabric of the American national identity and culture - but, are they true?Horwitz set out to discover, as much as possible, the truth about the discovery and colonization of the New World, with almost all of the emphasis on North America, and in particular, the United States.I found this book interesting and engaging. To use a cliché that's been beaten to death, Horwitz makes history come alive. He interviewed many interesting people, and explored many landmarks and relics. This book brought home to me how many versions there are of the same historic event, and that many times, it's the small, uncelebrated events that have the greatest impact on the developement of history.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another excellent book by Tony Horwitz, with a mixture of little known history, a personal search for existing evidence and landmarks related to early exploration of America, and subtle humor as he engages other Americans and their views of the early explorers.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Tony Horwitz, while visiting the Plymouth Rock, wondered why so many people were interested in looking at an old cracked rock. Why was the story of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving so important to Americans when other people visited and colonized America before them? Another question, why is Columbus considered to be the one who discovered America when he actually landed in what is now the Dominican Republic thinking he was in the India? Horwitz travels from an archeological investigation of a Norse colony in New Foundland, down to the Caribbean, through the American Southwest, across to Florida, up to Virginia and then back to Plymouth looking for the truth behind the discovery and colonizing of America.This book mixes in depth historical research with investigative journalism. Horwitz provides the reader with historical background and then relates his travels. He observes his surroundings and interviews people living there. His interviews are usually with park rangers, local historians, tourists, reinactors, or members of historical organizations.Horwitz writing style is both thoughtful and humorous. Racism crops up in some of the places he visits. In the Dominican Republic it's better to be of Spanish descent than Indian or black. In Virginia, many people claiming to be a descendant of Pocahontas are actually a mix of white, indian, and black. He talks with a member of an organization of whites who have been asked by Native Americans not to dress in Native American garb in public. He also relates his exasperating adventures traveling around the DR where mentioning Columbus is considered a jinx. At a ceremony he is pulled away from seeing the possible remains of Columbus by a group of bureaucrats. When sorting through all the myths and facts what is more important to people, historical truths or what they preserve to be the truth? In the end, people believe in what they are comfortable with and that is that the nation was founded by pious, hardworking Puritans.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Fountain of Youth, John Smith and Pocahontas, the First Thanksgiving -- they're all subjects of Tony Horwitz's peppery debunking of myths of American history. The investigative journalist tells us what REALLY happened after Christopher Columbus "discovered" America in 1492. The book is part history and part travelogue. Most of the stories are on the violent and/or bloodthirsty side-- and some of our "heroes" are certainly not people to emulate.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I paid attention in history class. Either I missed the significance of most of the content Tony Horwitz covers in this book, or it simply wasn't included in my textbooks. Horwitz looks at European contact with the New World of North America preceding the Mayflower's arrival at Plymouth. From this perspective, the settlement at Plymouth marked the end of an era rather than a beginning.The biggest surprises for me involved Spanish expeditions in what is now the United States. I had no idea that Spanish conquistadors traveled outside of the southwestern states, Florida, and the Gulf Coast. It was a revelation to learn that Coronado's route took him into the heart of Kansas. It was an even bigger revelation to learn that De Soto's route went right through my home territory of East Tennessee. Yes, I knew he had discovered the Mississippi River, but I had formed an erroneous impression that he discovered it by navigating up from the Gulf, not that he came across it during an overland journey that began in Florida.One of my favorite sections of the book is the note on sources and the 12-page bibliography. Chapter by chapter, Horwitz points the reader to primary sources available for that chapter's topic (often a translated and published diary, journal, or log) and to the best of the secondary sources on that topic. I added at least a dozen items to my TBR list -- some to buy and some to borrow from the library. At the top of the list are books about De Soto's journey that took him through East Tennessee.Recommended to readers looking for an overview of European exploration and discovery of North America. Readers of travel literature will enjoy reading about Horwitz's experiences as he followed the routes of these early explorers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Fountain of Youth, John Smith and Pocahontas, the First Thanksgiving -- they're all subjects of Tony Horwitz's peppery debunking of myths of American history. The investigative journalist tells us what REALLY happened after (and even before) Christopher Columbus "discovered" America in 1492 and before 1620, when the Pilgrims stepped out of their ships onto Plymouth Rock. The book is part history and part travelogue -- and the author is just the person to take us along for the ride. Most of the stories are on the violent and/or bloodthirsty side-- and some of our "heroes" are certainly not people to emulate. Finding traces of earlier civilizations isn't always easy (and there usually aren't Marriott hotels on the roads the author travels), but the places he visits and the people he meets are endlessly fascinating. As usual, Tony Horwitz delivers!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I loved Blue Latitudes and Confederates in the Attic. So much so that I made two different book clubs read them. I was a little disappointed in this book though. Not sure why. It has many of the same elements as the other two books...humor, history, travelogue...but it just didn't feel as cohesive as the others. Like maybe there was too much story for a single book. I'm not exactly sure. It's been a while since I read it, so I'm going on my memory, which hasn't been too reliable of late.Ah, found my old review, so here it is too, just to compare with my current recollection:Just finished this newest Tony Horwitz book last night. Horwitz is one of my favorite non-fiction writers, especially when he's writing about history. In this book, he visited Plymouth Rock and then got to thinking about all those Europeans who got to America before the Pilgrims did. And then he researched 10 of them and presented their stories in this book. Like all of Horwitz's work, it's fascinating and witty. But this one felt dense too. It may just be that I've been distracted a lot by life lately, but it took me a long time to get through this one. I always wanted to get back to it, just couldn't seem to find the time or energy. I'd still recommend it though. And I really liked what Horwitz had to say about myth vs. fact at the end of the book. Those few pages were worth the whole read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Best book I read in the last year! Great book to read if you're interested in American history. Hilarious and sad incidents on little known American history. Who would have thought that our forefathers were sometime cannibals in desperate times?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I bought this on pure impulse after hearing Cokie Roberts speak and visiting the bookstore that sponsored her talk. It was the best impulse buy I’ve made. Why, oh why, can’t textbooks read like Tony Horwitz? Lots of information, yes, but info interspersed with cool stories. Everything you always wanted to know about American explorers. Some I wish I hadn’t learned (DeSoto wasn’t a nice guy, for example.)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Tony Horwitz is one of my favorite writers. His books are the place where two of my favorite subjects - history & travel - meet. This book is no exception as it is prompted by his curiosity of what happened between Columbus' first voyage in 1492 and the settlement of Plymouth in 1620. This period of nearly a century & a half is often neglected in popular history and sometimes even in classroom history. To answer this question, Hortwitz travels across North America in the footsteps of explorers, traders, conquistadors and colonists from the Norse to the Spanish, French, and English.I tend to know a bit more than average American about this period in American history, but there were a few surprises for me in this book. For example, I never knew that French Huguenots settled at Fort Caroline in present-day Jacksonville, Florida only to be massacred by the Spanish. I know of Columbus' bad treatment of the "Indians" but didn't know that his first voyage was relatively peaceful and it was only in his later travels when he was mistakenly made a colonial administrator that he oversaw genocidal madness. The extent of De Soto and Coronado's journeys within the current United States boundaries was eye-opening as well.Horwitz's travels take him to:
    • Newfoundland for the remnants of Norse settlements from 1000 years ago.
    • The Dominican Republic to explore the land that Columbus so poorly administered.
    • De Vaca's route along the Gulf Coast.
    • Coronado's journeys through the Southwest and Plains.
    • Through the Southeast and across the Mississippi with De Soto.
    • French & Spanish settlements in Florida.
    • The "Lost Colony" of Roanoke on North Carolina's Outer Banks
    • The English Settlements of Jamestown and Plymouth.
    Horwitz balances appreciation for the hardships and hardiness of these explorers with an honest appraisal of their greed and cruelty. He's also amazing in his ability to find people who are connected with these stories whether they be descendants or merely fascinated with the period of history. One Pamunkey Indian even teases Horwitz for his tenacity in trying to get the story. "You are hard to get rid of, just like those damned English."This is a great book for anyone wanting to catch up on the history they may have slept through in high school written in a lively and humorous style. Another great volume for Hortwitz's oeuvre.Favorite Passages:"People thing the conquistadors were mad and greedy, always searching for pay dirt," Walter said, over the clank and crush of machinery. "Well, here we are, still digging." He took a long drag on his cigarette. "Those evil Spaniards weren't aliens, they were us. Get rich quick -- that's the American dream, isn't it?" - p. 149

    Seven Cities of Gold, the Isle of the Amazons, El Dorado - these weren't wild fantasies to the Spanish, they were vivid realities, just waiting to be found. Europeans often wrote disdainfully of Indian "superstition" - while marching through jungles and mountains in pursuit of their own potent myths. - p. 193

    [Reverend Gomes] smiled benignly, as I imagined he might at a bewildered parishioner. "Myth is more important than history. History is arbitrary, a collection of facts. Myth we choose, we create we perpetuate.He spooned up the last of his succotash. "The story here may not be correct, but it transcends truth. It's like religion -- beyond facts. Myth trumps fact, always does, always has, always will." - p. 387.