Publisher's Synopsis
Long before the Pilgrims, other Europeans pioneered North America, seeking land, converts and cities of gold. By exploring Americas lost, or often repressed, heritage, award-winning writer Tony Horwitz unmasks the country's founding myths.
A Voyage Long and Strange opens with the Vikings in AD 1000, but focuses on the neglected period in early American history between Columbus's voyage of 1492 and the Pilgrims' arrival in 1620. Horwitz recaptures the adventures of non-English explorers and the drama of the first contact with native peoples during this period. He also sets out on his own journey of rediscovery, travelling in the explorer's wake to reveal the enduring influence that early Europeans had on America.
Why, Horwitz asks, do we remember history the way we do? During his long and strange journey, from Indian sweat lodges to Columbus's crypt, he exposes the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget about our past. A Voyage Long and Strange is a gripping historical adventure that illuminates not only America's early European history, but also the memory and myths that give the past power in the present day.
