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 enlarge | Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $13.49
You Save: $12.46 (48%)
New (61) Used (14) Collectible (3) from $13.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  83 reviews
Sales Rank: 1657
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1
ISBN: 1594489998
Dewey Decimal Number: 974.0882859
EAN: 9781594489990
ASIN: 1594489998
Publication Date: October 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Well written but mediocre history January 2, 2009
Decent.
Like Sarah Vowell's other books, it's well written and funny. She seems to really love her subject, and that enthusiasm rubs off on the reader. It's not great history, but it would make a good introduction to the subject or a fun read for someone who already is familiar with it.
Also like Sarah Vowell's other books, it's self-indulgent, full of pointless asides about her life, and burdened with pointless political quips on just about every page. Did you know that she's part Cherokee? And that she hates President Bush? You will!
That said, I would still recommend this book.
 Buy the Audiobook! January 2, 2009
Vowell makes a subject in which I had absolutely NO interest fascinating! Hearing her read it is even better! I highly recommend the audiobook.
 One star is too generous December 31, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I knew when I selected this book it would probably have a liberal spin. But I thought, what the heck, I like the title, I'll be open minded, and I do want to know more about the Puritans. OMG, do liberals all get together and decide they will completely think in the same myopic, condescending, America needs to be taken down a notch view point? Oh yeah, it's called University. Well,the same old trite liberal spin is boring. I would rather attend a Quaker sermon with Benjamin Franklin than suffer through this nonsense again. Well, ok attending anything with Benjamin Franklin would be amazing, but still.... Please, learn to diverge your thinking and come up with something clever and different if you want us to believe you are the party of diversity. One sided, intolerate bad mouthing of others who certainly were extremely multifaceted would go a long way in acheiving some sort of crediablity. As you can see the liberal bent totally distracted me from what I really wanted to know more about - The Puritans. Now for the one star, I will say, I appreciated the author's admiration for the Puritans...even if it was in her own twisted, gosh I'll try to admire them without liking America way.
Not her best effort December 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The coolest thing about the book is how Winthrop used the "City on the Hill" analogy in a sermon and how that analogy has been used throughout U.S. history to justify various stances on moral grounds. Reagan intentionally used Winthrop's allusions in many of his speeches. Kennedy, Vowell's idol, does the same. The problem with the book is that she points out a few good things about the Puritans, but the climax or what she writes most about is the failures. The main good things are that they were intellectual. They were readers. They founded universities. However, the climax of the book is the massacre of the Pequot Indians at Fort Mystic. Or was the climax the banishment of Anne Hutchinson? She was expelled from a religious community whose rules she did not like anyway. Hutchinson was a heretic. Vowell wrote a lot about these two incidents and about Willams. Vowell's message seemed to be inclusiveness. I guess Puritans did not believe the right things.
Another problem with the book is she is so predictably liberal. She hates Reagan and Bush. She loves Kennedy. She keeps writing that beliefs can get you killed, which is unfortunately is a belief I think. The massacre of the Pequots was terribly wrong. Both sides made mistakes and the conflict escalated out of control. I was not sure what lesson we should learn from this tragedy except that I wished it never happened. She compared this incident with Truman's decision about nuclear bomb. I think she thought his decision was terribly wrong. She didn't really explain. I am sure Truman thought his decision was terrible also, but I don't think he felt the Japanese and circumstances gave him much of a choice. I don't want to judge him. Many people were going to die no matter what decision he was going to make.
The book was dry in spots and her quirkiness, which usually spices up her prose with pop culture references in earlier books, only helped a little. I learned some, disagreed with her a lot, and wished she could have more fun writing books with a more coherent message. She did not seem like she was enjoying herself.
Sarah Vowell didn't let the Purtians get a word in edgewise December 29, 2008
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
If you want to learn about the Puritans - why they came to America, what their voyage was like, what their new life in America was like - DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. You'll never figure it out by the end of the book!
Sarah Vowell rambled on and on with her own "wordy" political agenda and never let the Puritans get a word in edgewise. This book reminded me of being in a terrible professor's class where I was a captive audience to listen to the professor's ego-centered opinion, while not learning a thing about the subject of the class which was why I enrolled in the class anyway.
The Seattle press stated she is a loyal patriot. I never found one thing she thought positively of our great country. As angry as she is with what her Native American forefathers went thru when the white man stole their land, she hates this country, not loves it.
The same Seattle press stated she is a Christian. That too is an over-statement. She bashes Catholics and Protestants alike. If she had ever spent time reading her bible, she would have discovered Christianity is about spreading the gospel in a loving fashion and would never condone the Crusade "method" of the Middle Ages or what she said the Purtians were aiming for.
I'm quite frankly sick of authors like Sarah pushing their agendas down our throats under the guise of an entirely different topic. This is not how history should be taught to our kids!
Don't waste your money helping to support this woman and her anti-American and anti-Christian agenda.
Sarah - since you so hate everything this country has done to you and your forefathers, why don't you leave instead of making a living off of bashing people like the nation's forefathers who had the gumption to come to America in the first place - despite all the uncertainities and harsh environment.
Get off your band wagon and really tell us what the Purtians were about as your book advertises.
I only gave this a one star rating as I can't go any lower.
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