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Riverhead
October 2008
On Sale: October 7, 2008
272 pages
ISBN: 1594489998
EAN: 9781594489990
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography | Non-Fiction History
The Wordy Shipmates is New York
Times–bestselling author Sarah Vowell’s exploration of
the Puritans and their journey to America to become the
people of John Winthrop’s “city upon a hill”—a shining
example, a “city that cannot be hid.”
To this day,
America views itself as a Puritan nation, but Vowell
investigates what that means—and what it should mean. What
was this great political enterprise all about? Who were
these people who are considered the philosophical,
spiritual, and moral ancestors of our nation? What Vowell
discovers is something far different from what their uptight
shoe-buckles-and-corn reputation might suggest. The people
she finds are highly literate, deeply principled, and
surprisingly feisty. Their story is filled with pamphlet
feuds, witty courtroom dramas, and bloody vengeance. Along
the way she asks:
* Was Massachusetts Bay Colony
governor John Winthrop a communitarian, a Christlike
Christian, or conformity’s tyrannical enforcer? Answer:
Yes!
* Was Rhode Island’s architect, Roger Williams,
America’s founding freak or the father of the First
Amendment? Same difference.
* What does it take
to get that jezebel Anne Hutchinson to shut up? A
hatchet.
* What was the Puritans’ pet name for the
Pope? The Great Whore of Babylon.
Sarah
Vowell’s special brand of armchair history makes the bizarre
and esoteric fascinatingly relevant and fun. She takes us
from the modern-day reenactment of an Indian massacre to the
Mohegan Sun casino, from old-timey Puritan poetry, where
“righteousness” is rhymed with “wilderness,” to a
Mayflower-themed waterslide. Throughout, The Wordy
Shipmates is rich in historical fact, humorous insight,
and social commentary by one of America’s most celebrated
voices. Thou shalt enjoy it.
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