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The Wordy Shipmates | 
 enlarge | Creator: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $15.08
You Save: $14.91 (50%)
New (45) Used (9) from $15.08
Rating:  84 reviews
Sales Rank: 57215
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 6
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5.8 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0743578198
Dewey Decimal Number: 974.00882859
EAN: 9780743578196
ASIN: 0743578198
Publication Date: October 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
New York Times bestselling author Sarah Vowell explores the Puritans and their journey to America in The Wordy Shipmates. Even today, 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? 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 Christ-like 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 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, to a Mayflower-themed waterslide. 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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| Customer Reviews: Read 79 more reviews...
 The pre-modern side of Puritan New England October 2, 2008
23 out of 27 found this review helpful
There's nothing like a Sarah Vowell book to provide a new slant on a historical period. In "The Wordy Shipmates," she tackles a rather odd era, and one for which most people have definite opinions: the settlement of Massachusetts by the Puritans. Vowell does not reveal that the Puritans were *not* the American version of the Taliban. Certainly, they were fanatical, even by the standards of their own time, and harsh and guilt-ridden to boot. Their endless arguments about the meaning of biblical verses and their extreme hatred and fear of "Papists" put them two steps away from the loony bin. Yet they possessed attitudes (and paranoias) that put them squarely at the root of what would become the American nation character. Having arrived on these shores, by the grace of God, they were ferociously jealous of their freedom from the intrigues and violent interference of the English court and church. Worried sick about takeover by their own government, they were careful to give at least the appearance of subservience to the powerful crown. Vowell's hero is John Winthrop, the first governor of the collection of rude shacks that became the city of Boston. Winthrop is an oxymoron -- a Puritan with a streak of practical morality -- who rules with a weird combination of Christian compassion and tyrannical ruthlessness. Over a fractious and easily offended populace, Winthrop bobs and weaves like a prize fighter, somehow managing to keep his society from fragmenting. Winthrop nearly meets his match with Roger Williams though. Williams, far from being the free-speech champion that we liberals thought him to be, is even more of a Puritan than the Puritans. He finds that his austere compatriots to be insufficiently willing to separate from the ungodly, raising the hackles of "moderates" like Winthrop, and eventually earning himself banishment from the community. Yet Vowell finds the silver lining in Williams, who, arguing for a wall to keep the government out of the *church*, set the stage for future debate that bore fruit over a century and a half later in the Bill of Rights.
"The Wordy Shipmates" is a fascinating read, peppered throughout with Vowell's entertaining and snarky similes and parallels. Her discussion of the way that most Americans (including herself) get their history from popular shows like "Happy Days" and "The Brady Bunch" is illuminating and a little scary. To counter this, Vowell provides plenty of primary material -- mostly from Winthrop's journals -- and provides explanations that give context and cut through the turgid 17th-century prose. Most aspects of tehstory move briskly,. Though her telling of the genocidal Pequot "War" drags a bit. She does do a great job of seeing how Winthrop's' "City on a Hill" image has been used and misused throughout history, especially by those who missed the point that at its base, the City was intended to describe a society whose members were bound to one another through Christian charity. For a closer look at a society which we tend to judge and dismiss, "The Wordy Shipmates" book is a gem.
Sarah Vowell Does It Again! September 28, 2008
22 out of 30 found this review helpful
Sarah Vowell is one of my favorite writers. She writes in such a way that makes history fun and interesting, even if you haven't studied it since high school.
THE WORDY SHIPMATES continues this trend. It focuses on the Puritans, the wave of settlers to Massachusetts who followed the Pilgrims. They were led by John Winthrop who is probably best known for coining the term "City on a hill" made famous by several Presidents, including Reagan. Vowell also writes about Roger Williams (who after being exiled from Massachusetts, settles Rhode Island), Anne Hutchinson, and the Native Americans.
Like her previous work, this is a highly entertaining read. You feel her enthusiasm for the time period. As I stated, even those who don't normally read history will find this fascinating.
This may end up being my favorite book this year.
I can't wait to read what she writes next.
Not all Puritans were created alike November 3, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Many readers will come to "The Wordy Shipmates" via the same route and reason I did: I enjoyed "Assassination Vacation." I expected the pilgrims would get the same work out as history of America's first three presidential assassinations--travelogue, history, connecting the dots along history's timeline to reveal America's growth as a nation and culture, and a dose of Vowell herself, a passionate, opinionated history geek with a penchant for irony. In "Shipmates," there is far less present day geographical travel and less of her quirky self in the narrative. What she mostly does is travel through the words of New England's founding Puritans to sort out the ideas that shaped things to come, how they did and did not play out, and to see how they reverberate today.
Vowell is right: when pilgrims come to mind, it's a big harvest feast with happy Indians. People tend to think they arrived all at the same time, and that the witch trials of Salem were on the heels of the disembarkation at Plymouth. In fact, the immigration began flowing with the Mayflower in 1620 and covered much of the 17th century which closed with the Salem trials. The Puritans were not all of one mind and belief, either. In fact, they struggled among themselves regarding the tenets of their faith, their relationship with Mother England, what New England should be and not be, and how to treat one another and the Indians. Vowell mostly focuses on the events of the 1630s, when Roger Williams was banished to the wilderness where he carved out Rhode Island, when the domineering Anne Hutchinson rattled male leaders, and when things went from "the Indians want us to help them and we'll do our best" to the Pequot War that batted clean-up on the devastation that European microbes had already wreaked, thus making way for the state of Connecticut.
I give Vowell a 5 for doing her homework, for casting out misconceptions and finding out just who the founders were, what they believed and what were their actual legacies. She is amazingly lucid given that her travels are largely intellectual among a pithy bunch. I give her a 4 for the fact that it is rendered in one long episodic essay--no chapters, no index. This does not have the bouncing-off-the-walls headiness of "Vacation," but she gets at our Americaness in a meditative but urgent way that is effective, so I'll stick with the full 5 points.
Vowell Is A Historian's John Stewart November 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Witty, droll, and insightful, she took on the early Massachusetts Bay Colony--the Puritans who settled Masschutsetts Bay--Salem, Boston, Cambridge, etcetera ten years after Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock--but puts what they wrote and did in the context of their time and what occurred before and after: from John Wycliffe's fourteen century English translation of the Bible to the present, including Thanksgiving episodes in Happy Days and President Bush's justification for invading Iraq.
Vowell had a lively bunch to work with: Winthrop, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, John Cotton, and a score of others, complex characters all. She praises them for courage, perseverance, and rectitude but shows their failings as well, including a great deal of hypocrisy and cruelty, especially towards Native Americans. However, The Wordy Shipmates is not some liberal diatribe against these mythical icons. Vowell acknowledges the great debt she and we owe them--from free speech to civil rights--and freely confesses she likes them and would love to have the bunch over for a lively if contentious Thanksgiving dinner.
Some disclaimers are in order. First, to appreciate this excellent work, one must relax and get into Vowell's mind. Though enlightening, this book was written to entertain. Don't buy it if you are looking for some score to settle. It's too complex and balanced for that. Secondly, prepare yourself for its lack of chapters. Every few pages has a break set off with an oversized initial capital--a place to put the book down for dinner--but otherwise it's a 248 page essay. But that adds to the experience. The one suggestion I make is the book could be improved with an index, which would allow the reader to revisit favorite passages without rereading the entire book (an index would not assist the midnight student doing a last minute term paper--this is not a reference book.
Dancing in History October 12, 2008
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
Sarah Vowell is my type of gal: writer extraordinaire, political guru, and complete and total history nerd. Coming off the success of the off-beat and incredibly likeable Assassination Vacation, Vowell brings to us the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is her delightful new book, "The Wordy Shipmates".
People familiar with Vowell's work will be charmed with the musings of her new tome. Taking on colonial America and only she can see, Vowell paints a portrait of rugged stoicism, harshness, and reflective political discourse. She introduces us to John Winthrop, a middle class businessman and Puritan lucky enough to sail to the new land on the Arbella (why no fondly mention of this ship in our history books?). Winthrop's contribution to Americana has not been forgotton, mostly in the form of Reagan's classic speech which he evoked "the shining city on a hill" as a symbol for America. Turns out, as Vowell muses, Reagan's shining city on the hill had lots of trash, homelessness (by choice!), and people dying of AIDS, unacknowledged by the conservatives in Washington.
In fact, that's what Vowell is best at in this book. She gives us palatable doses of American history (so as not to scare off those people who are fact-phobic) and then writes a chain of observations of that theme (much like the radio show she often narrates for, This American Life) that are sometimes witty, and sometimes touching. In reading the aforementioned "Christian Charity" sermon, penned by Winthrope, Vowell takes us on a brief but incredibly touching journey through post 9/11 New York City, proving that yes, despite differences, we Americans DO come together and DO watch out for each other. Even in NYC.
I guess I love Vowell's writing because it appeals to the inner-history geek in me; the one that loves to imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago, braving an angry ocean, ship sicknesses, and coming to a new land; filled with people from an entirely different culture, and trying to make a new life. Vowell's writing is a perfect balance of fact and op ed musings that make spending time with her books the most worthwhile.
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