A Voyage Long and Strange

[alexiscartwheel]

It seems appropriate to read about American history in the week leading up to Independence Day, doesn't it? Tony Horwitz's new book A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World is a far from typical American history book. Horwitz challenges the traditional American "creation myth." You know the one, with the Mayflower and those guys in black? Escape from religious persecution, survival against the odds, all topped off with pumpkin pie.

Horwitz follows the trails (both the paper and geographic varieties) of seven centuries of American exploration and settlement, from the Vikings through Columbus, the Spanish, the French, and finally the English. The book is part history, based on records of the expeditions, and part travelogue. The author travels to Newfoundland, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and across the United States in search of the true story of the New World. Along the way he attends his first sweat, canoes the Mississippi River, and reenacts as a Conquistador. Throughout the journey, his encounters with local residents give the centuries gone explorers a sense of modern relevancy.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It exposed an era of our history that I and most Americans know little about and did so in a very entertaining way. Horwitz gives multiple perspectives to each story, and frame any of them as tales of right versus wrong (though many interviewees do). In that respect, it's probably impossible to get to the "truth" of early America. As one man from Plymouth tells the author:

"Myth is more important than history.History is arbitrary, a collection of facts. Myth we choose, we create, we perpetuate... 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."

But even if myth ultimately wins out, it's still nice to know some of the facts. Every myth had to start somewhere.

Comments

[stubefied-by-gd.livejournal.com]

That's funny. I guess I grew up in some sort of cutting edge area because it seemed to me someone was always finding another historical "myth" to blow apart with "facts," and eventually I just got sick of it. It's really easy to miss and mis-interpret things hundreds of years later, as solid as they look, but a lot of people just present it as new, better information. It's different. It adds to our understanding. But I don't feel like we should immediately accept it as independently closer to the truth. It sounds like your book tries to balance multiple perspectives, which I appreciate. I'm just sort of ranting because I've developed a knee-jerk reaction. Between people getting ego-trips off ripping apart Christopher Columbus and a college professor who took way too much pleasure in calling Genesis a creation MYTH every time he could, I've turned into a vigilante "myth"-defender. (Funny how "I reject your reality and substitute my own" works both ways)

[alexiscartwheel.livejournal.com]

One of the things that I liked about the book was the idea that if something has obtained that "historical myth" status, there's a reason for it. It resonates with people. The idea isn't necessarily that certain events are more true than others, just that certain interpretations of events have gained more historical traction, while others have been forgotten. I think a major point of the book is that the forgotten stuff is worth remembering. Not throwing over all your previous conceptions of history, but, as you said, adding to our understanding.