The Wordy Shipmates | 
 enlarge | Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Rating:  65 reviews
Sales Rank: 158
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
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Product Description
The Wordy Shipmates is New York Timesbestselling author Sarah Vowells exploration of the Puritans and their journey to America to become the people of John Winthrops city upon a hilla 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 conformitys tyrannical enforcer? Answer: Yes!
*Was Rhode Islands architect, Roger Williams, Americas 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 Vowells 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 Americas most celebrated voices. Thou shalt enjoy it.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 60 more reviews...
 "Jokey" history with constant interruptions December 5, 2008
Sarah Vowell specializes in what might be called "jokey popular history." She's serious about her subject but she tries to wrap it up in a -- well duh! style of writing interspersed with many personal asides, some relevant, some not.
Here, she writes about the founding of the colonies of Massachusetts and Rhode Island and the colorful characters who inspired them. This quickly draws her into abstruse theological differences that today seem highly irrelevant. But she succeeds in demonstrating that the ideas of men like John Winthrop and Roger Williams did much to form the kind of country the United States eventually became -- and continue to live on today, although much altered by history.
Though she admires both men, she also judges them by 21st century moral standards and finds both wanting. Of course, the ultimate blot on the record of these fine-speaking avatars of Christian morality was the appaling massacre of Native Americans at Mystic Fort when women and children were burned alive.
I found the material interesting but the author's radiophonic "This American Life" interruptions were often intrusive. She tends to ramble. One and a half thumbs up for this one.
A Little More Self-Aware Than I Like December 4, 2008
It could just be me, but I just feel like Sarah is a little too self-aware of her role in the media, and that she's trying too hard to be the person she thinks we're expecting her to be.
The book is well-written and researched, as I have come to expect from her works. I just got tired of the tone after a while. I still give it 4 stars, because it really is a very good book. Just not a great one.
 Sarah Vowell is a gem November 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
But is this audiobook a gem? I couldn't tell you. See, I don't have a cd player apart from my computer. And the computer can't read these discs. Fancy copy protection. Pretty dumb if you ask me.
So how to review the book? Well the audiobook has to get thumbs down for the content protection. I mean, come on, are there that many ravenous bittorent pirates who are out there saying "to heck with the latest porn and The Dark Knight, I gotta file share that new Sarah Vowell immediately!"
So I could have given it one star.
But that would be mean.
And if you think about it, it just goes to show what a cool person Sarah Vowell is, beset on all sides by people doing her wrong including misguided industry hacks. (Psst.....the more people who read it/hear it the better. It's not Diddy's latest.)
(Her New York Times columns were absolutely classic, too.)
So, five stars for now, but I'm still working on hearing/reading this book. And at that point, content based review, here I come.
Great Idea but Does not Fully Deliver November 29, 2008
I will admit that I enjoyed this book very much. I think Sarah Vowell did a great job of explaining how the Puritans who first settled here in 1620 & 1630 have had a continual and ongoing impact on the U.S. Her irreverent tone and tongue in cheek approach to telling their story and her own search for their modern day remnants is very well written.
I do disagree with a number of the points that argue that Vowell argues that the somehow the Puritans created this modern religious right wing colossus. Not only does she spend a great time discussing her own Pentecostal upbringing, but she does a great job of explaining how both Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson were to serve as role models for many dissenters down the line.
The books one great weakness is that it does tend to meander from topic and gets diffuse at certain points. There is a lot of filler and the story often times becomes non-linear it seems. But all in all if you're a history buff and especially if you enjoyed Assassination Vacation you will enjoy this!
Vowell Is A Historian's John Stewart November 28, 2008
1 out of 1 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.
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