Description

What happened in North America between Columbus’s sail in 1492 and the Pilgrims’ arrival in 1620? On a visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz realizes he doesn’t have a clue, nor do most Americans. So he sets off across the continent to discover the wild era when Europeans first roamed the New World in a quest of gold, glory, converts, and eternal youth. Horwitz tells the story of these brave and often crazed explorers while retracing their steps on his own epic trek – an odyssey that takes him inside an Indian sweat lodge in subarctic Canada, down the Mississippi in a canoe, on a road trip fueled by buffalo meat, and into sixty pounds of armor as a conquistador reenactor in Florida. A Voyage Long and Strange is a rich mix of scholarship and modern-day adventure that brings the forgotten first chapter of America’s history vividly to life.